


a hundred times better than pretending to be good

by choiliasgf (pissedofsandwich)



Category: ITZY (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Projecting Her Own Issues to Fictional Lia, Chaeryeong Knows Things, F/F, Lia Needs A Hug, Ryujin Has a Bi Panic, WANNABE era, Yeji Just Wants Everyone to Be Happy, Yuna Is Fed Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissedofsandwich/pseuds/choiliasgf
Summary: Ryujin notices a shift in Lia's demeanor. Chaeryeong seems convinced nothing is wrong, Yeji knows more but refuses to say anything, and Yuna seems to think that her innocent midnight snack break with Lia is doing more harm than good. It's frustrating enough trying to get Lia to stop smiling so sadly, but even more when she's also discovering (and re-discovering) things about herself.
Relationships: Choi Jisu | Lia/Shin Ryujin
Comments: 41
Kudos: 137





	1. it doesn't have to be something

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe i'm writing rpf again in 2020

It's been bugging her, is the thing.

"What do you mean, she's different?" Chaeryeong says, eyebrows knitted together. She's holding a water bottle close to her mouth. Two hours into practice and she hasn't even broken a sweat. Damn stamina. Ryujin would hate her if they aren't in the same group.

"She doesn't talk," Ryujin says. "Like, less than usual."

"Maybe she's tired?" Chaeryeong shrugs. "Maybe comeback's stressing her out. I know it's stressing me out."

"But this time it's different," Ryujin insists. "She's more withdrawn. Quieter."

A peal of laughter bursts from the middle of the room. Lia's lithe back is bent over, her eyes crinkling, arms around her stomach like it hurts from laughing too much. Yuna's phone is in front of her. She's probably showing her a funny meme on SNS or some truly horrendous joke. Ryujin desperately wants to know.

Chaeryeong raises her eyebrows.

"Okay, so not _now_ , obviously," Ryujin rolls her eyes.

"I think you're reading too much into it," Chaeryeong says, flipping her hair across one shoulder. It smells like strawberries. Ryujin tries not to think about how embarrassingly stinky her armpits are right now.

A reply is on the edge of Ryujin's mouth, but Yeji, returning to the practice room after a short trip to the cafeteria downstairs, beats her to it, announcing, "Lunch!"

At the promise of food, Chaeryeong visibly perks up. Today is cheat day—they've been having less and less of that lately, with the date of their comeback nearing. Some higher ups want Ryujin to have even less, citing her thighs looking fat in the last vlog, and Ryujin sweetly responds by having sweet potato fries as her midnight snacks. Echoing this spirit, Yeji has procured her ham sandwich, chips, and banana milk. Ryujin really loves Yeji. Yuna has pizza bread, Chaeryeong has some healthy mixed greens, and Yeji, making a face at Chaeryeong's meal of choice, is happily stuffing her face in fried kimchi latkes.

Lia is notably sipping at her giant water bottle.

"You're not eating?" Ryujin asks.

Lia looks surprised that Ryujin asks, which exasperates her to no end. It's not like it's hard to notice, when Lia is the only person without a meal. "Oh," she says, and her mouth curling around that one syllable sounds really... butterflies-inducing, in a way that Ryujin doesn't want to dissect. "I'm doing that intermittent-fasting thing."

"To lose weight?" Ryujin says, looking up at down at Lia’s small frame. “Aren’t you already on the ideal range?”

"I want to lose four more kilos," Lia answers, and goes to sip her water again like it will make Ryujin less angry at the notion. She looks around, at Chaeryeong and Yuna, giggling at some funny video, at Yeji, texting away on her phone. Ryujin looks down at her sandwich, sighs. She re-wraps it with the parchment paper that comes with it, sets it down next to her. Lia glances at her questioningly.

"In solidarity," Ryujin mutters, and Lia looks startled, but she doesn't say anything. Ryujin thinks about the Lia who jokes at her about the kiss cam at a baseball game, and cannot find that Lia in her grey, downcast gaze. She doesn't want to push, but worry gnaws at her heart.

Yeji catches her eyes. The leader quirks an eyebrow, but Ryujin just shakes her head.

*

Ryujin can't pinpoint where she begins to notice, but she can recall snapshots—moments where she looks at Lia and feels her world shifting off course, just a little. A slight hesitance in Lia's steps, a shuttered smile, one that doesn't really reach her eyes, glumly poking at her food, deflecting and cracking a well-placed joke when asked, turning back so fast into that bubbly personality that Ryujin has no idea how she doesn't get a whiplash.

Chaeryeong catches her looking at Lia, sometimes. She always gives her a Look—in capital, because Ryujin really doesn't know what that look is supposed to mean. It makes her feel like Chaeryeong is looking at her through a magnifying glass, but what Chaeryeong is hoping to find is anyone's guess. One time, she pulls Ryujin aside and says, "Do you have a crush, or something?" And Ryujin's face gets hot so quick that she doesn't think about her reaction, just slaps Chaeryeong really hard on the upper arm and goes to the bathroom to put her face in her hands, her heart pounding wildly against her ribs and not understanding why.

Ryujin doesn't like girls that way. She plays into it, but she's had boyfriends. She's only ever exclusively dated and kissed boys. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, because Yeji notices too. It's kind of annoying that it's only then Chaeryeong begrudgingly starts to listen, but Ryujin is just smug she can hold it against her.

But Yeji is calm about it, which Ryujin finds kind of upsetting. How can Yeji not feel like her chest is hurting whenever Lia smiles that off-kilter, unfeeling smile? It's beyond Ryujin.

"She's just not feeling confident lately," Yeji says. "Try not to make it a big deal, she's pretty self-conscious already."

Which—yeah. If Ryujin wakes up to find comments accusing her of lazy dancing on the top stories when she Googles her name, her confidence will be shot to hell, too. But it's been—what, a month? Since that story broke out. Ryujin has her fair share of stupid scandals too—that one time she thought it was so funny that her stylist had fashioned a tube top out of male underwear became a stupidly unnecessary gossip for, like, three hours, and it made her feel icky to think about how many people were making fun of something she thought was a harmless joke, but she got over it. She wants to understand why Lia couldn't. When she tells Yeji as much, she sighs, in a way that lets Ryujin know that she knows more than she lets on but is unwilling to share.

"She's dealing with it," is all Yeji says, and Ryujin wants protest, but when Yeji puts her foot down, it's non-negotiable. Ryujin pouts, which makes Yeji pinch her cheeks and call her out on trying to abuse _aegyo_ to get what she wants, but she changes the subject afterwards, and Ryujin doesn't know how to bring up the topic again without having Chaeryeong giving her those Looks again.

Lia is pretty much fine the next day, cooking them breakfast and actually eating at the table with them, and Ryujin thinks, oh, good, it's over, then.

And then she catches Lia, turned away when she thinks no one is looking at her, and there—the same unfeeling smile. The one that makes Ryujin's chest hurt just looking at it, the one that shouldn't be on Lia's face, ever.

When Lia catches Ryujin's eyes on her, she shifts suddenly. "What are you looking at, Ryujin?" she winks, and it's meant to be playful and flirty and sure, the effect is super effective on Ryujin—and there Chaeryeong is, giving Ryujin those Looks again, which, fuck off, Chaeryeong—but Ryujin keeps her face straight, and can't quite shake off the feeling that something she holds dear has been snatched off from between her fingers when she never has a chance to really grasp it in the first place.

They go to practice, dance until Ryujin is sure she can't feel her bones, shower and eat dinner made haphazardly by Chaeryeong, sluggishly go through the motions of washing the dishes and finally, finally, at half past ten, they have their free time. Yuna uses it to study, because she's a baby, Yeji usually disappears into a corner and calls her friends and family, Chaeryeong to her online games. Ryujin just likes to go straight to sleep, knackered after what is essentially a twelve-hour cardio, but tonight, she finds it hard to sleep. She lies in bed for an hour, tired but so restless, until Chaeryeong trudges in half-asleep and snores within minutes, and decides that there's no getting sleep for tonight.

She jumps off her bed and puts on her slippers. Maybe she'll watch dramas on mute until she passes out on the living room couch.

She wonders if this is insomnia. Her brother, who is in university, complains about it often—perhaps it's genetics. She remembers her mother up at odd hours when she was little, roaming the house like some kind of ghost. If she passes it down to her, it's just very unfortunate that it manages to manifest now, of all times. Gingerly, she goes down the stairs, careful not to make any noise—Yeji's room is right across from the stairs, and as a very light sleeper, will be pissed off at Ryujin for waking her up.

To her surprise, the lights downstairs are still on. She peers around the corner to find Lia, hair cascading down her shoulders, one sleeve of a sweater falling off a bony shoulder. She jumps when she sees Ryujin, and Ryujin is quick to put a hand on top of her head so she wouldn't hit it against the open shelf above the sink.

"Ryujin," she squeaks. "What are you doing up?"

Ryujin takes her hand off her head, eyeing the older girl with narrowed eyes. "What are you doing up?"

"I asked you first," Lia says petulantly.

"Well, you're here first," Ryujin crosses her arms in front of her chest. "I think you should explain."

Lia's shoulders droop. It makes the sweater fall further, exposing the milky skin underneath. Ryujin stops herself from wondering if it'd feel as soft as it looks. "I can't sleep," Lia admits, almost shamefully.

"So you went to the kitchen?"

Lia mumbles something that Ryujin can't hear. Ryujin leans against the countertop. "Sorry, what?"

"I'm hungry," Lia says, louder and angrier. She looks as though she's just admitted a terrible crime, and Ryujin remembers, with sobering clarity, that Lia's barely eaten anything at dinner. Just kind of—poked at it, looking at the rice and chicken funny. There's the shuttered, locked-up Lia that Ryujin hates, standing in front of her like a thief caught red-handed, when she was just looking for a snack. Something twists in her stomach.

Ryujin squares her shoulder. "Oh," she says, trying to sound as casual as possible. "Same. I was going to throw some sweet potatoes in the air fryer."

She wasn't, but it's worth the lie, when Lia looks up at her with big, brown eyes. The shadows under her eyes are deep, always covered up by concealer and a crazy amalgam of eye cream products that they're endorsed to use on a nightly basis.

"You were?" Lia asks.

"I have cravings," Ryujin says. "You know. That time of the month." She goes to the fridge, removes a couple of smooth, round sweet potatoes. "Want some?"

Lia shrugs. "I guess."

Ryujin makes just enough for two, setting the fryer on the lowest setting so the noise wouldn't wake anyone up. It's a few minutes past midnight; in five hours, they all have to get up for an early TV appearance. Ryujin glances at Lia, not quite watching her from where she's perched on top of the aisle opposite from her, and hopes that she gets enough sleep after this.

She squirts on some hot sauce, just because. Lia eyes it warily and takes the one that has the least amount of sauce. Ryujin observes the way she eats—she doesn't bite, she takes really tiny nibbles. In the time that it takes Ryujin to finish three, Lia's only gotten half eaten. It's almost like she's deliberately making it last longer, and not to savor it.

Ryujin must not have been biting her tongue fast enough, because she says, "Why do you eat so slow?"

Lia's head snaps up, and she looks so embarrassed to have this specific thing pointed out, and Ryujin, cursing herself internally, quickly adds, "I made all this for to the two of us, but at this point I'll finish this all by myself and I don't know about you, but I'd rather not spend an extra hour in the gym trying to burn the extra calories."

She wonders if it's the wrong thing to say when something in Lia's face shuts off, if she's hit the wrong button, somehow, in her effort to get Lia to stop smiling so sadly. Ryujin thinks about apologizing when Lia reaches out determinedly for another piece of fry. She takes one comically large bite, as if to spite Ryujin, and despite the hour, Ryujin feels herself wide awake and alert, following the way her soft, pink mouth close around the fry, shiny from saliva. She has to look away and shove some more fries into her mouth to keep herself from doing something stupid, like try to wipe it off with the pad of her thumb—or worse.

Ryujin is far too tired to think about the worse option.

Between the two of them, Ryujin eats maybe a solid ninety percent of the portion, which she doesn't really mind. Her fast metabolism, she has to admit, is God's apt gift. Lia doesn't say anything as she takes the bowl from Ryujin's hands, her fingers brushing just slightly with Ryujin's, and washes the bowl methodically. The curve of Lia's back feels strangely intimate to look at, with this lighting, in the kitchen at this hour, and something traitorous tells Ryujin that if it had been any other girl—Yeji, Chaeryeong or Yuna—it wouldn't feel the same.

But also, Lia's back is curved like she's holding an invisible weight on her narrow, bony shoulders. Ryujin wonders if she can ask Lia to give some of her burden, so Ryujin can understand why, can ease the knot between her eyebrows.

Lia switches off the water tap, and it's very silent, suddenly. Ryujin can almost hear the beat of her own heart.

She looks up at Ryujin, a strand of hair obscuring on eye, something clear in her brown irises. Ryujin's holding her breath when she speaks. "Don't tell anyone," and it sounds so small, coming out of Lia's mouth.

"About..." Ryujin looks around, at the narrow-shouldered girl in front of her, the bowl still drying on the rack. "About not being able to sleep?"

Lia's next words come in a rush, "About eating." Her hands are around her elbows, like a barrier, on the defensive.

Ryujin blinks. "Are you serious?"

"Can you keep voice down?" Lia says urgently. Ryujin hasn't even realized, in her disbelief, that her voice has climbed up an octave.

It just seems so—trivial. What's so terribly shameful about eating that it has Lia feeling like it has to be kept a secret? Ryujin knows about weight restrictions, how the agency wants them to debut at around the same weight, how Yeji always says that she's responsible for what she eats, but she's never felt like she has to hide her midnight cravings. The fact that Lia doesn't think the same is sitting wrong in Ryujin's chest, and she wants to tell her just how wrong she is for thinking that there's nothing wrong with enjoying a late night snack, but Lia's eyes are panicked, desperate to have Ryujin promise to never speak a word about all this, and so Ryujin says, "Alright. I won't."

The relief in Lia's expression makes something in Ryujin ache, somehow. The older girl has been doing that to Ryujin a lot, and she hates it more than she doesn't understand it.

"It's late," Lia says, soft, an obvious attempt to deviate the subject. "We should go to sleep."

Ryujin nods.

Lia goes up the stairs first. Ryujin takes no pleasure in noting how her shoulder blades poke out as she reaches for the railing. Lia disappears into the room she shares with Yuna without so much as a backward glance or a polite goodnight, and it makes it harder for Ryujin to fall asleep. Even if she does, in the morning, she wakes up with a knot of unease in her chest that won't go, even after Lia smiles at her during breakfast, all too cheery and nowhere near genuine.

No one seems to think anything is wrong.

But why would they? They weren't the one downstairs in the kitchen last night, hearing Lia confess her hunger like she's behind a screen, and Ryujin's a Catholic priest who's only supposed to listen and do nothing.

Ryujin pushes herself to act as if nothing is bothering her, grinning in the right moments, talking back at the right jabs on the dining table. But if anyone reads her mind, they'd see that Ryujin is only thinking about Lia, and the soft pads of her fingers curled around a fork, disinterested, without appetite.

Ryujin decides, then, that doing nothing is the last thing she wants to do.

*

Ryujin's not particularly close to Lia, which would be a surprise to anyone who has been following ITZY since day one. Ryujin's not really sure if she's just overthinking it, but she's almost 100% certain that being close to someone implies that there are stories and moments of vulnerabilities shared between the two parties, but with Lia, there's almost nothing but the perfect veneer of an idol whenever Ryujin tries to dig underneath. It didn't use to be something that bothers her or even notice, really—in a group of five, there's bound to be two people who are closest compared to others, and she knows this. She's closer to Chaeryeong than she is with Yuna or Yeji, and that's fine. Ryujin doesn't understand why it suddenly sucks that she's not Lia's closest person.

No, that title belongs to sweet, charismatic Hwang Yeji, with icy silver hair and charming smiles. Yeji seems to be the only one that Lia really opens up to, and Ryujin finds herself wondering, more and more these days, if Yeji knows what she knows. That Lia feels ashamed about having snacks at midnight that she'd make Ryujin promise not to tell anyone. And if she does, if she's done something to alleviate that shame, to look at Lia straight in the eyes and tell that she's being stupid, that food is a joy and she should never, ever feel like she has to hide her hunger. If she's done that, and Lia simply doesn't have it in her to believe in those words, if maybe Lia tells Yeji everything except for the things she tells Ryujin last night.

No matter, Ryujin is on in her own plan. Well, it feels generous to call it a plan; in actuality, it only is just a bunch of dedicated small gestures. Making sure that when she has a snack, she offers it up to Lia and doesn't budge until Lia takes a bite, even if it's infinitesimal, prolonging her eating so she stays with Lia until she's finished her meal, albeit halfheartedly. She also makes a habit of poking out of her room just after everyone's gone to sleep, just to check if Lia is there, hovering in the kitchen, and more often than not, Ryujin finds her, and every time, Ryujin would make an excuse about wanting snacks and roping Lia to eat some of it, even through her protests.

Ryujin tries to make it as subtle as possible, as accidental as tripping over a sidewalk. Lia would be pissed, Ryujin thinks, if she knew what exactly Ryujin is doing to her. Lia's never been good at receiving help, even when she clearly needs it. Ryujin knows it's because her whole career, Lia's been made to believe that she's a silver spoon, only getting in because of people in higher places pulling up strings for her. Training for the shortest amount of time puts her dancing skills below the group average, Ryujin won't sugarcoat it, and Ryujin sees how Lia struggles in the beginning, how she forces herself to put more hours so she can perfect one move, how she doesn't want to ask for help in the first place because she's afraid it would make her seem weak, proving all the naysayers right, until Yeji yells her name so loudly and tells her it's okay to need help.

Looking back, Ryujin wonders if that's the beginning of their friendship. She kind of wishes that it was her, instead of Yeji, who'd helped. Maybe then she'd be closer to Lia.

Ryujin manages to keep her resolve, hides enough behind an air of nonchalance that no one questions why she's been going to bed later than usual, why there's always one extra bowl left to dry on the rack—not even Chaeryeong starts sending her those difficult, indecipherable Looks. Not even observant, leader Yeji. Instead of looking down at her socks, Lia begins to ask if Ryujin's free to have their midnight hangout, every other day, with a smile that makes Ryujin's heart so warm, she wants to take off her jacket. Slowly but surely, the collarbones that used to stick out on her decolletage like thorns soften, and Lia gains weight.

Foolishly, Ryujin begins to think her plan is working.

*

Out of everyone, it's Yuna who approaches her.

And sweet, uplifting Yuna corners her next to the vending machine during practice break with the most severe look in her eyes and accuses her, "I know what you're doing to Lia."

Ryujin is at a loss for words.

"Whatever it is, you need to stop it," Yuna demands.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ryujin says, but dread creeps up her veins, seizes her heart around an iron grip. Ice cold, she wonders, have I done more harm than good?

"Please," Yuna scoffs. "I may be the youngest but I'm not the dumbest. I'm Lia's roommate. I know that she's been sneaking around after she thinks I've fallen asleep."

"Whatever you think it is, you don't know the half of it, Yuna," Ryujin says.

"Please excuse my French," Yuna tilts her head, her arms going around her middle. "But cut the crap, Ryujin. I may not know 100% what you two get up to, but I know that every time Lia comes back from your midnight rendezvous, she locks herself in the bathroom for hours and always comes back looking paler than usual. I don't need to know the whole story to at least put two and two together." And then she says her next words with so much conviction that Ryujin is almost convinced that it is, indeed, the truth: "You're breaking her heart."

Ryujin almost lets out the ugliest guffaw in the history of all guffaws. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You are breaking her heart!" Yuna jabs a finger at her. "Ugh. Please don't play dumb with that teen crush act. I know you're not actually that dense."

"Yuna, I swear," Ryujin says. "I'm not doing whatever it is you think we're doing. We're just hanging out. Two girls can't do that?"

"Not after dark, being all secretive," Yuna insists. "Unnie, I don't care if you're a lesbian. I don't care if both of you are gay, bi, or whatever. But I care that you're not perceptive enough to notice that whatever it is, you're hurting her." She takes a step back, sighing. "Fix it. I don't want to see Lia sad ever again."

The youngest doesn't even offer her a chance to explain herself, leaving her next to vending machine outside of the JYP dance hall with an exasperated, disappointed huff. Ryujin leans against the vending back, heart pounding in her ears, poring over the implications that Yuna has placed on her and Lia. So many thoughts race in her head all at once. She presses the heels of her palms against her eyes and tries to sort it out.

Okay. Okay, so. One: the obvious. Being told off by Yuna feels even worse than being scrutinized by Chaeryeong's Looks. And Yuna seems to think that they're... fuck, Ryujin can't even say it.

She's not... she's not a lesbian. She's not gay. She supports gay rights, she thinks everyone should have equal rights to be with anyone they want, regardless of gender, but it's not. It's really not.

It's not _her_.

Sure, Lia is wonderful and amazing and ever since she's put on some weight, the way her cheeks fill out more make Ryujin want to kiss them. But like, as a friend. In a completely, beautifully platonic way. And sure, the way the clothes now fit her just shy of snugly, accentuating her curves, her torso and the dip of her waist and her hips—

Oh my. God.

Fuck. Fuck. Is Ryujin gay? Wait, she definitely likes boys. She likes kissing boys.

No, seriously. This is normal, probably. Girls admire other girls, it's just a completely normal occurrence, because girls to each other aren't being conditioned to repress their admiration towards one another like boys are. Lia has been looking fresh and livelier than usual; it should be normal that Ryujin wants to compliment her on it.

And besides—

_...every time Lia comes back from your midnight rendezvous, she locks herself in the bathroom for hours and always comes back looking paler than usual._

That's more important than anything else. Ryujin's stomach churns just thinking about it.

Her first instinct is to ask Lia. She never wants to assume, not when it comes to their strange, budding friendship. It feels too precarious of a line to walk on. So with her pride carefully intact, she re-enters the dancing hall, determined to get to the bottom of it before her mind goes crazy with anxieties.

And there Lia is, always up and dancing earlier than anyone else in the group, repeating a shoulder move that only Ryujin and Yeji have truly mastered at this point. There's Yeji in another end of the room, earphones in, mouthing along to the words. Chaeryeong and Yuna are nowhere to be seen.

Lia notices Ryujin, and Ryujin doesn't think she's ever seen a smile so blinding before in her life.

"Hi," she greets. "Did you have a nice break?"

And instead of answering, Ryujin finds herself fixated on that smile, the way her mouth stretches across her white, straight teeth, the specks of liptint that color the inside of her lips a darker pink than the rest of them. Before Ryujin can decide better, one of her hands is already reaching out, smoothing over her shoulders. They still feel bony underneath her fingers.

"Your shoulder's still a bit stiff," Ryujin tells her in a low voice, coming up behind her. This close, she can see the baby hairs that have escaped her ponytail. If she just leans forward a mere millimeter more, her lips would be acquainted with the texture of the skin on Lia's nape.

"Yeah?" Lia says, her voice barely above a whisper. "Show me how to do it?"

Their eyes meet over the ceiling-length mirror. Lia's eyes are soft, so soft, and her mouth is still curled around a smile so genuine, that it washes Ryujin with a sudden horrifying sense of being grossly _undeserving_.

One: She's hurt Lia, whether she meant it or not. The fact remains. Two: every time Lia comes back from your midnight rendezvous, she locks herself in the bathroom for hours and always comes back looking paler than usual.

Ryujin's made that smile disappear, and isn't that man's greatest offense, to make that genuine smile falter, or gone?

And as fast as she's made the decision to put her hands on Lia's lithe shoulders, she takes them off.

Ryujin stops, after that, for fear that she's hurting Lia in ways she doesn't understand. When midnight rolls around, she forces her eyes shut, clenches her toes and fists so she wouldn't go downstairs and scoop Lia into her arms while they lounge around eating air-fried sweet potatoes. She tries to avoid Lia, as best as she can. She doesn't want to hurt her beautiful soul, never again.

Weirdly enough, this is when Chaeryeong starts giving her more Looks than usual.


	2. the nagging, stop it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a shorter update, but worth it, i promise ;)
> 
> (psst, a comment or two also wouldn't hurt? please tell me what you think so far! it'll motivate me to write faster!)

On the day of the shoot for their comeback music video, she’s given a metallic blue wig and instructed to cut it off exactly two centimeters above her shoulders. Her real hair, dyed the same color two days ago, is gathered under a cap and untouched. She thinks she’s giving the director panic attacks every time she so much as snips off two millimeters more of the instructed length. She starts doing it on purpose just so she can feel anything other than the eroding, unsettling feeling lodged between her ribs.

It’s proving to be harder than she thought to ignore Lia. Certainly no easy feat, when they live under the same roof and spend nearly every waking hour together, but Ryujin’s nothing if not persistent. In high school, when school held prom and wouldn’t let girls without a male date join the couple dance, she stubbornly led her best friend to the floor and slow-danced until the principal gave up trying to shoo them off. She became the first—and only—baseball player in her school team after she heard about the no-female rule. When Ryujin has a goal, she works towards it, and nothing will stand in her way—especially her own little stupid feelings.

The first few days were the hardest. Lia demurely asked her why she didn’t come down at midnight, and Ryujin had to make up a lie about being sick, and repeated the lie again the next day until Lia stopped trying. It hurts when Lia stopped approaching her, seeing the honest, open smile that she’s grown accustomed to disappearing into the polished, fake ones that she puts on for show, but all Ryujin has to do to keep her resolve is remind herself of Yuna’s words, and she manages to carry on.

Still, it didn’t make the days after easier.

“Are you guys fighting?” Yeji asks one morning, whispered and worried.

“What?” Ryujin laughs. “No, what are you talking about? We’re good.”

Yeji tilts her head, watching Ryujin closely, and Ryujin hopes that her lie sustains. Thankfully, she’s always been good at that—something in her tells herself that she’s been doing that all her life, even to herself. “Okay,” Yeji relents slowly. “It’s just—you’ve kind of been distant.”

“Oh, have I?” Ryujin pretends to look miffed. “Sorry—it’s this comeback. It’s kind of stressing me out.”

“Well, make sure you rest well, okay?” Yeji says, and the genuine care in her voice almost makes Ryujin feel bad for lying. She reaches out and grasps her shoulder. “Feel better soon, Ryujinnie.”

Ryujin _does_ feel better, especially today when she finds that it’d be a solo shooting day. At least alone, she can breathe easier, even if it’s because of the knowledge that there’ll be no one she’ll be lying to, at least for a few hours.

Still, the nagging feeling of _wrongness_ stays.

*

If she could shoot every single scene alone, she would. Unfortunately, there are dance sequences that feature the entire group. So two days later, when the director arranges them for single shots in a dingy-looking set, Ryujin comes face to face with Lia.

Her hair’s shorter. It makes her look fresh, rounds out the edges of her jaw, pulled back from her hair with a set of gigantic hair-clips that are honestly terrible, but looks good on her. Lia can probably wear trash bag and make it work. She just has one of those faces that go well with anything.

It’s when Chaeryeong purposefully bumps her that Ryujin realizes she’s been staring.

“If looks could kill,” Chaeryeong starts, and Ryujin scoffs, thinking, _okay, between the two of us, you’re the one with the stupid unreadable Looks, so shut up._

Instead, Ryujin overcompensates. “I just think the hair clips are too much.”

“Oh,” and it’s Lia’s sweet voice, clearly having overhead the conversation—and fuck, it probably sounds awful without the context, and Ryujin wheels around, apology stuck to the roof of her mouth. Lia looks a bit like a deer caught in headlights, touching the edges of her hair clip with a look that Ryujin knows all too well—carefully concealed humiliation.

Ryujin stammers. “I didn’t mean—”

Lia laughs, and it’s the first sound coming out of her mouth that’s ugly, meant to mock and look down on herself. It makes Ryujin flinch. “No, it’s fine,” she says. “I mean, they’re pretty tacky, right? It spells out ‘bored’ too—pretty overkill, huh?”

Chaeryeong pouts, goes to cup Lia’s cheeks. “No, unnie, you look beautiful. Ryujin is just being mean.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ryujin says helplessly. God, she just didn’t want to give Chaeryeong the wrong idea, how did it end up so messy?

Maybe this is why it’s the best that she cuts out Lia completely. Even when she didn’t mean to, she kept hurting her.

A high-pitched ringing sounds in the studio, and the crew takes its place. The camera starts rolling, and immediately, Lia changes. Perks up like a flower, the worst Ryujin’s ever seen. She hates that plastic saccharine-sweet smile, wishes she’d see that genuine one again, the one that caught her breath over the mirror, days ago.

But then, in front of the camera, they’re meant to look the happiest. It’s an unwritten part of their contract—under the spotlight, there can’t be anything less than a polished, advertisement-appropriate happiness.

And so Ryujin smiles, too.

And when, like some kind of sick joke, the director tells Lia to hop on Ryujin’s back and act like they’re having the times of their lives, Ryujin keeps that smile, no matter how badly she wants to explode at the feeling of Lia’s arms wrapped around her neck. A terrible closeness.

*

Ryujin will later remember only snapshots.

One thing is clear: they are at a game show. Their new song is a hit, so obviously, they go and promote themselves at game shows. She is not familiar with the emcee, only knows that he is somewhere in the mid-thirties, and he's been smirking in a way that makes Ryujin's skin crawl since they introduce their names. Ryujin's not even sure what game they're playing, if it's supposed to be her turn.

But it's supposed to be funny, light-hearted. Cheeky, maybe. A dance challenge of some sort, and Lia, smiling and beautiful and always with the most creative ideas, says, "Ah, listen, if it includes dancing, just assume I'm not joining."

And Ryujin laughs, because in the history of dancing games, Lia is always the worst. She's always laughing too much to take it seriously, but to her it's kind of endearing. A relieving contrast to the way that she's always on the edge of punishing herself during practice. Ryujin loves this joking, laughing Lia.

And then the emcee says, "Why won't you dance, Lia? Stop being so lazy!" And he laughs and _laughs_ and Lia laughs, too, but Ryujin can't find where the funny part is.

"If I play, I'd get the choreography wrong and lose you guys points," Lia reasons.

“Ah, really? Isn’t that just you trying to get out of dancing?” the emcee says. Ryujin feels the beginning of heat in her blood, the one that’s unpleasant, threatening to break out of her veins. If the emcee continues, she thinks, she can’t be held accountable for what she’s about to do next. Yet, unfailingly, the emcee continues, prodding at Lia with a smile that’s sickly saccharine, “You need to try harder than your members, Lia! Don’t you know the fans don’t like—”

“ _No_!”

It’s only when Ryujin looks up to find all eyes on her that she realizes the guttural, forceful sound came out of her. But at this point, her brain fails to catch up with her mouth, and words rush out from her tongue in quick succession, angry and bitter. “Don’t say something like that. You don’t know how hard she’s kicking underneath.”

The emcee blinks. “Ah, I only meant—”

“Do you know how words can hurt? Goddamn, every other year we trend this shit in hashtags, but the day ends, and what? You turn around and do the same thing over and over again? For entertainment?” Ryujin snaps. “Lia _tries_ harder than anyone in this team! That ‘lazy dancing’ that you’re talking about—that was one time! One _fucking_ time! Did you know that she had a _fever_ , in that show?”

Yeji puts a hand on her shoulder, panicked. “Ryujin—”

“No, this shit against Lia has to stop!” Ryujin brushes her off. “Why do you like picking on people so much, huh? Is your life that sad that you need to make yourself feel better by belittling others? Isn’t it enough that she felt _guilty_ every time she eats because some of you lowlifes think that it’s fun to pick at her weight? How far are you going to push—”

And she’s yanked bodily back, nearly stumbling into Chaeryeong, who’s rooted in her spot, frozen. It’s Yeji, and she’s gripping her shoulder hard enough to bruise. She’s no longer the sweet, charming leader that Ryujin knows her as—her eyes are ablaze with anger, and worst of all—disappointment.

“ _Ryujin!”_ she barks at her. “Enough!”

This is about the moment Ryujin realizes she’s fucked up.

“Cut,” she hears the director say. The lights dim. Commercial rolls.

She’s probably scarred the emcee for life in addition to getting them blacklisted off this show forever, but she can’t bring herself to care. Next to Yuna, Lia stands, still as a statue. When she looks at Ryujin, she looks deeply hurt.

And Ryujin’s heart breaks into pieces.

*

Everything after that is a blur. Ryujin is dimly aware of other things happening—Yeji pulling her aside before their manager can chew her out, her eyes sharp and knowing and worried, saying something that Ryujin can't remember, but is aware enough to understand it means to _hurt_. Chaeryeong doesn't even look at her, and it's even more awful than being sized up. She's at Lia's side, Yuna holding on to the crook of Lia's elbow, and Ryujin feels like she should say something, explain, but the fact remains that she just exploded on national television, and put ITZY under the spotlight this time for all the wrong reasons.

It's when Lia rounds on her later that Ryujin's focus returns. Hyper aware suddenly of her surroundings.

It's late at night, maybe after midnight. If you ask Ryujin why she went downstairs after weeks of firmly planting herself on the bed, Ryujin won't be able to tell you the answer. Her feet just sort of take her there, like they know that Lia will be waiting in the kitchen.

She looks up when Ryujin steps into the kitchen.

And she looks betrayed.

"Lia..." her voice is humiliatingly shaky. Fuck. Ryujin can't fucking cry; she's the one who made all the mess. She doesn't deserve to cry.

"It's not your call," Lia says. Then, with something fierce, "Ryujin, did you know that? It's not your goddamn call."

"I'm sorry," Ryujin says. What else is there to say?

Lia looks away. The fluorescent light paints her in a harsh light, sheds shadows on the parts of Lia that are the sharpest. "I don't understand you," she whispers. "You've been ignoring me for days, haven't let me said a single word to you."

"I'm not..." Ryujin begins her lie, but even she can't believe it. Lia certainly can't, if the arch of her eyebrows is any indication.

"We live together," Lia says. "Do you know how hard it is to _not_ talk to each other? If we haven't, is because one of us is actively avoiding it. And it sure isn't me."

Ryujin stares at her feet. "I'm sorry, Lia."

"I thought I did something wrong," Lia ignores her. They're at opposite ends of the kitchen aisle, Ryujin hovering near the entrance, where the light doesn't quite reach. Lia is washed in silver light, striking and angry and defeated all at once. With every word, it seems that the distance is farther. "Our—late nights, they're some of the most fun part of this. A little secret, something shared just between the two of us, a special thing, you know?”

Ryujin swallows. “Lia—”

Lia's voice grows quiet. "I thought I was becoming your friend."

Something in Ryujin's heart break. "Lia, you're my friend."

"Then why aren't you acting like one?" Lia shoots, hits right where it hurts. To Ryujin's horror, her eyes are glossy with unshed tears. "Ryujin, I was so confused. You acted like I didn't exist for days and then suddenly, you exploded at a stupid comment. Jumped in defending me, saying all those things..." she runs a hand down her hair. "Doesn't mean any of the words you said is true, and I'm still mad at you for assuming all that about me and blasting it on live television, but—fuck, Ryujin. You defended me. Why?"

"How could I not?" Ryujin says back at her. She spreads her arms, laying everything bare in the wide space between their bodies. "Lia, he was calling you lazy, goading a reaction out of you—he wants to see you hurt, it's the same shit that a lot of idols are put through. Same shit a lot of idols don't make through."

"You couldn't have just deflected?" Lia says. "Why—why did you have to mention anything about—the food, the—the guilt—Ryujin, you could've just—let them. I'm not weak, I can take it."

And that is, officially, too much for Ryujin.

She crosses the room in two wide strides and grabs her by the shoulders. She doesn't care that the force of it nearly knocks Lia down, or that it slams her right up the aisle, Ryujin's nose just a mere breath away from Lia's. She needs Lia to hear it. "You shouldn't _have_ to take it," Ryujin grinds out. "Lia, you're fucking amazing. You're none of the things that those stupid people say about you. You're not weak because some of those comments get to you—Lia, you have to see for yourself, you're worth so fucking much."

Lia's body has gone rigid in Ryujin's arms. "You...you're just saying that."

"Lia. _Lia_. I'm not, you need to understand—" Ryujin's breath shudders violently out of her nose. She squeezes Lia's shoulders. "I care about you, Lia. That's why I stopped coming here at night. How can I, when every time, without fail, you locked yourself up in your room for hours, only to reemerge near the morning, looking paler than a ghost?"

Lia's mouth opens, closes. A dark understanding passes over her brown eyes. "Yuna," she croaks out. "Yuna told you."

"I don't know what I did to hurt you that much," Ryujin confesses, "but I don't want to keep doing that." She loosens her grip of Lia's shoulders, exhaling slowly when she sees that under her grasp, the fabric of Lia's sweater has creased dangerously. "I don't want to hurt you, Lia."

"So you thought you'd ignore me?"

"I didn't know what else I could do!"

" _Talk_ to me," Lia's voice borders dangerously on a sob, and Ryujin's heart breaks and breaks and breaks—God, here she is doing it again. Hurting Lia when it's the absolute last thing that he wants to do. "I would've told you. I would've—Ryujin, I would've told you everything."

Something heavy hangs in the air between them, Ryujin struggling to take in and understand this moment of vulnerability, of Lia practically giving her permission not just a glimpse, but a full observation of all her cards. She would've told Ryujin everything, and Ryujin realizes far too late that in her hands, incapable and inexperienced, she's holding Lia's bleeding heart.

Lia looks up, and Ryujin only registers thinking, _God, stop looking at me so sadly_ , before Lia's lips are on hers.

*

Ryujin’s brain does this thing. When she feels overwhelmed, when things at home become difficult and there’s too much going on all at the same time, she lists off all the things that she knows to be true. When high school teachers confuse her, and it’s the day before an exam, she lists off:

One: x is an unknown variable. Two: y is equal to 2 x’s. Three: y is 8. Four: x is 4.

It becomes a habit, grounds her especially on days where her anxiety is at an all-time high. Before debut, before a comeback, before thousands of audience come to see a live show. It helps her be mindful of where she is, so she doesn’t lose sight of herself, the kind of person she wants to be.

So.

One: x is an unknown variable.

Two: y is Ryujin kissing her _back_ , and there should be a correlation between x and y, except Ryujin can’t really find it in herself to do the math. All she knows is that Lia tastes like strawberries on her lips, and it’s everything Ryujin wants out of a kiss. All the boys that she’s kissed won’t be able to hold even a candle.

It’s over far too soon—Lia jumps back, like she isn’t the one who kissed her in the first place, and looks up at Ryujin with the same look in her eyes when Ryujin finds her looking for snacks the first time, all those weeks ago. Caught red-handed.

“I’m—” Lia says, and she sounds breathless, her breaths quick like she’s waiting on an impending panic attack. “Ryujin. I’m so _sorry_.”

And she dashes away from Ryujin so fast that the whiplash has Ryujin reeling violently, unbalanced in this world where her lists refuse to compute x and y, where she can still taste Lia on her lips, forlornly staring at the empty space where Lia had been just mere moments ago. _Kissing_ her.

“Well,” Ryujin says to the air in front her. “Well. Shit.”


	3. no interference, no harm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> without further ado: the great bi panic

Even if Ryujin tries, she can't stop thinking about the kiss. Not even the scheduled hectic week ahead can help Ryujin with that. Instead, the kiss creeps up to her in waking hours, coming back to her in dreams, a soft press of lips on lips, a proclamation of something that she doesn't understand yet, but wants to.

Like clockwork, Lia's all but silent to her, getting up when Ryujin walks into a room, putting as much distance as possible between their bodies. It's insane how, before, Ryujin won't mind the distance, would even think it necessary—but now that she knows how it feels like to have Lia pressed up against her, she knows what she's missing, and she... craves for more.

She thinks the stupidest thing of all is that she's straight. She's pretty certain of that. She never had thoughts about girls before, never saw them the way she saw boys. If she's into girls, she's pretty sure she would know—but Ryujin looks away from Victoria's Secret ads on storefronts instead of wanting to look at it, so that probably means she's straight, right? If she's into girls, she'd want to look at girls. At their bodies. Boobs and stuff. But she doesn't—in fact, it embarrasses her to think about girls that way, feels it to be daunting somehow, and that has to... mean something, right?

It's just Lia, probably. Straight or not (and she _definitely_ is straight, probably), being kissed by your friend of the same sex will probably confuse you. This is not definitely a sexuality crisis.

But she kissed back.

And that's... uncanny. Her brain probably thinks she's kissing a boy, programs her mouth to kiss back, not understanding still that it's Lia. That probably explains it.

But there's also the memory of that boy in twelfth grade, kissing her out of nowhere in the backseat of his car, and Ryujin remembers her mind registering this as a kiss from a boy but her not kissing back, shocked because she hadn't liked him that way. She's kissed other boys back before because she liked them enough to want to, and she obviously likes Lia, but like, as a friend. And friends probably don't kiss each other.

"Ryujin," their manager snaps, and all at once, reality dawns on her. Every day of the week has been like this: walking in a daze, only in the present when people call her name, lost in the swirling thoughts of a kiss and its head-spinning meaning. Ryujin registers that she is in one of those cold meeting rooms in JYP building, going methodically through the list of appearances and events they have to do in lieu of damage control.

Beside her, Yeji shifts uncomfortably.

"Sorry," Ryujin mumbles. "Did you want something?"

"For you to start listening, for a start," their manager grumbles. "Need I remind you that your little outburst is what got us in this position?"

"I'm sorry," Ryujin says, for what seems like the umpteenth time. She must've looked pitiful, because the manager sighs in a way that says she's not angry, just disappointed. Arguably, that’s kind of worse.

"We have to be grateful at the very least that the netizens are more or less on your side," the manager muses. "You haven't seen it, because I sure hope all of you are still upholding the no personal SNS rule, so I printed out some of the responses for you." She distributes a bunch of papers, and Ryujin, with dread, takes a peek at one page.

A comment. _Ryujin looks really mad._

A tweet. _If Lia can't keep up with the industry standards, maybe it's time to change? Although, she should've known what she signed up for when she became an idol..._

A tweet. _I think we need to remember that they're still practically teenagers... maybe if they're older we can start being strict, but not when they're this young._

A comment. _Hearing that sweet, beautiful Lia has possible ED makes me feel less alone in my journey,_ and the subsequent, agitated reply, also in English, _It has NOT been confirmed if Lia truly has ED, so try not to assume anything. It's very harmful. Just support them as best as we can._

Ryujin has no time to wonder what ED stands for, the manager's already speaking again. "But we're lucky this time. Next time one of you decide to run your mouth, they may not be so gracious," she says, tilting her head pointedly at Ryujin, who tries not to sputter. "Damage control is minimal, thankfully. All I need is for you to appear at CoolFM, make some clarificatory comments, and promo should carry on as usual. If there's one positive thing, streams for WANNABE have gone up in the last 24 hours, so be grateful that your little stunt is no career suicide." Then, more to herself than anything else, she murmurs, "Controversy really sells these days, huh..."

The corner of Ryujin's eyes twitches. She doesn't know how she feels about her genuine feelings towards Lia being written off as controversy; the way she reacted may have been disproportionate, but it doesn't make the message less true, as angry as Lia was (is?) about it. It feels... _cheapened_ , somehow, this controversy take. But she bites her tongue; she's already spoken too much.

The manager continues on, but try as she might, Ryujin finds it difficult to concentrate solely on her and her instructions. Her eyes keep drifting towards Lia, sitting at the furthest end of the table, eyes turned away. She’s avoiding even the mere idea of an eye contact. No, not just avoiding—straight up ignores Ryujin, her multiple texts in the immediate after, a feeble attempt at a casual conversation at breakfast. It's probably karma serving Ryujin right, and she bets she'd have a better time handling this if the rest of the group isn't also giving her silent treatment, too. Even Yeji is apprehensive with her, and it hurts almost as much as Lia's avoidance does, coming from their leader.

But Ryujin refuses to apologize, not for what she said.

The meeting ends not soon enough—and Ryujin will be hearing the sound of their manager droning on the words _controversy_ over and over on her deathbed, probably—and, flanked by security, they start to make their way downstairs, but not before their manager gets up and catches Lia by the elbow.

"You guys go ahead," she says. "I need to talk to Lia alone."

Lia can't look more like a deer stuck in headlights at that moment. Ryujin wants to save her.

"Okay, unnie," Yeji nods meaningfully up at Lia, ushering the four of them out before Ryujin can do more stupid things. Probably a good call, but Ryujin's also pissed.

The last Ryujin sees of Lia is her soft black hair, swishing on her shoulders as the manager pulls her into another meeting room. The elevator doors close, and then Ryujin misses her.

*

For her part, Ryujin doesn’t mind keeping to herself—except for when her mind wanders back to that kiss in the kitchen, which happens more often than Ryujin likes.

It’s just—look, even at times when she _doesn’t_ think about the kiss, it’s only because she _actively_ refuses to think about it, which still means that the picture of them, pressed against each other under fluorescent lights, is still plastered on the front of her mind. She has no idea how to make it go away. The most confusing thing is she doesn’t _want_ to. And she doesn’t know what to make of that.

She keeps thinking about what Yuna said, remembers that at the time she said it, it seems so _absurd_ that Yuna would think that she’s drawn that way. And now she sits alone in her bedroom, Yeji camping out with Chaeryeong because they both have decided to not want to talk to her now, slowly going insane trying to connect all the dots.

Does this mean Lia is… into girls? Romantically? Has Yuna always known? Is that why Yuna cornered her that day? But if, in fact, Lia is… not straight, why didn’t she tell anyone else? Or is Ryujin the only one that didn’t know? But why would Lia kiss her?

Does this mean Ryujin is… a lesbian?

Ryujin groans, burying herself in her pillow. The bed next to her is mockingly empty. She told herself that she deserves this silent treatment from her members, but she isn’t so sure now. Being alone while her mind races a hundred miles per hour like this is… well, lonely.

She jumps out of bed. Her first instinct is to go to the kitchen, grab some honey potato chips and eat the whole bag until she feels better about herself, but the kitchen feels sacrilegious now. It’s not that she might run into Lia—she’s not back home yet from her meeting—it’s that she might run into just about _anyone_ , and with everyone pissed at her now, she doesn’t think she wants to risk the awkwardness.

She looks outside of the window. The crescent moon is pale among the clouds. She grabs her airpods and slips into the balcony.

The cold air bites into her skin, but Ryujin kinda need to feel something, so she lets it. Airpods in with the noise-cancellation feature on, Ryujin leans against the doorframe and closes her eyes. Insistent beats knock against her eardrum, a constant _dum dum dum_ , and Ryujin tries to match her thoughts to the song, sorting it out.

Does she like kissing boys? Yes, she does. Although none of them has felt the way Lia’s lips felt. Wait, does this mean that she didn’t actually _like_ those kisses? Has Ryujin been… whatever it is that she starts to suspect, and not known it? But if she is, wouldn’t she be able to say those things? The labels? Then why does it feel so daunting? And why does kissing Lia feel so _good?_

She lets out a frustrated breath. Okay. Try again this time. But don’t go down a spiral.

Does she like kissing boys? Yes, she does.

Does it matter that kissing Lia felt better than any of the boys in high school? Not really. Unless—

She startles when she feels a heavy fabric draped over her shoulders. A thick wool blanket. She looks to the balcony entrance to find Chaeryeong standing there, a bulky sweater on over a pair of pink velvet pajamas. 

Ryujin lifts off one airpod.

"Please don't catch a cold," Chaeryeong mutters.

Ryujin blinks. "Thanks?"

Chaeryeong huffs, but she doesn't make another move. Just sort of leans against the windowsill, as if waiting for Ryujin to do something. With baited breath, Ryujin scoots over, making space for Chaeryeong to sit, presenting it with a flourish.

Chaeryeong sighs, and she still looks like she'd rather be in a dumpster than here, but she sits down, and that's progress.

"Do you—" Ryujin clears her throat. She's not used to stumbling over her words like this. It's very unbecoming and frankly, annoying. "Do you have any idea what manager-unnie might want to talk about alone with Lia?"

"What do you think?" Chaeryeong retorts, but quickly softens at the way Ryujin flinches at that. She sighs, and tries again. "Probably our nutritionist."

"Why, so she can have a new diet program?"

"And a psychiatrist, too. Probably."

Ryujin fidgets in her seat. In her ear, the music is playing, an off-beat dum dum dum that feels out of place for this conversation. "I looked up the definition of ED today," she starts. "Because that's a term that appears in a lot of the comments. Anyway, it stands for—"

"I know," Chaeryeong says sagely.

"Do you think she—"

"I don't know, Ryujin," Chaeryeong says, and she sounds impatient this time. "That's what the meeting with the psychiatrist is for. We're not supposed to—assign a diagnosis on people like that. We're not medical professionals. And you should know better than to believe everything you read on the internet, Ryujin."

"I _know_ that," Ryujin says, frustrated. She hits the stop button on her phone harder than she means to, and exits the Spotify app. Silence hangs between them like an oversized elephant. "I'm just... worried."

"I know. We all are."

The way Chaeryeong states that, so matter-of-factly and almost detached, makes something in Ryujin twist in tight knots. In a flash, she's standing up. "Then why didn't any of you do anything?" Ryujin demands. "And you! You acted like I was delusional for thinking something is wrong with Lia."

"Because!" Chaeryeong throws her hands in the air. "I know you would react like this! I was trying to _save_ Lia!"

"From what?" Ryujin exclaims. Chaeryeong stiffens up at her raised tone, and the other girl exhales shakily, running a hand through her hair. "I swear, ever since I noticed, you all have been acting weird. You—you keep giving me these... _looks_... and I could never understand what those mean. It makes me feel like—like I'm guilty of something."

To her part, Chaeryeong doesn't look surprised, as if she's been waiting for Ryujin to ask this question a long time ago. She folds her arms on top of her knees, and Ryujin can see the myriad of thoughts racing in her mind.

"I talked to manager-unnie about this, before," Chaeryeong says. "This isn't... the first time Lia exhibited those behaviors. But the first time is a long time ago, and she got better. I didn't think of... it as a recurring problem, more like a... scraped knee, you know? Put bandaid on it and you're fine. So when you told me Lia started acting weird, I just thought it was you projecting yourself, or something."

Ryujin folds her arms across her chest. This is the first time she realizes that there are so many layers to Lia that she still doesn't know, and it leaves her questioning if there are still more, maybe things she'll never discover. It makes her feel sick to know that this isn’t the first Lia was like this, even more sick to have the confirmation that the first time, Ryujin _didn’t know_. It feels like a sin, somehow.

She's not thinking when she says it, but she wonders if it's part of the reason why she tells Chaeryeong, "Lia and I kissed yesterday."

And Ryujin's expecting shock, maybe, or even—disgust. She knows not everyone thinks two girls should be kissed. But Chaeryeong takes it like Ryujin's confessed that she borrowed her favorite eye curler and lost it—resigned, a kind of, _what can you do? It's already done._ And then her shoulders deflate, her eyes going unreadable again.

"Ah," Chaeryeong says. "That's exactly what we wished wouldn't happen."

It's blatant, like it's something that Ryujin herself should know, and it hits her like a freight train—the knowledge that she's been kept out of secrets.

"We?" she whispers, even though she already knows the answer.

"Yeji, Yuna and I," Chaeryeong confirms for her, and even if there's an amount of guilt in the way she says it, Ryujin wouldn't notice. She's far too hurt by the fact that they're keeping things from her, that despite her thinking Chaeryeong is her person in this group, Chaeryeong talks about her behind her back. And about something as... salacious as... whatever this is that she has with Lia, too.

Ryujin closes her eyes, and opens them again, hoping her vision clears of the red tinges that signal her anger. She doesn't want to explode again, but oh, how she wishes she could. "What does that mean?" Ryujin asks, hating how she doesn't sound calm. "Did you guys—did you all know?"

And how, exactly, could they all know even before Ryujin understands what it is that made her kiss Lia back?

"No, we didn't, exactly—" Chaeryeong cuts off, shrugs. "It's just—a feeling, really. Look, it’s kind of public knowledge that Lia likes you."

And that is just absurd. A maniacal laughter bubbles out of her mouth. There is no way her life is real, because that's a huge joke.

"We're not even... friends, until recently," Ryujin says. "She's way closer to Yeji. If anything, _she_ has a crush on Yeji. Not me. Besides, I'm not—"

 _I'm not gay_ is what Ryujin is going to say, but in that moment, she realizes: if she's straight, she probably wouldn't need to defend the idea that she's straight this much.

Chaeryeong just raises her eyebrows. "Really? You two had a whole moment in Paris. Lia asked you to buy a _summer house_ together."

"Yeah, as a joke," Ryujin insists. "It's like, for the show."

"Oh my god," Chaeryeong buries her face in her hands. She looks up. "Just—look, Lia likes you, and that's a fact. Do you want to know why I kept giving you those looks? Because up until then, I was convinced you didn't like her back. I wanted to save Lia from the heartbreak. If you started paying more attention to her, I was worried Lia might think you liked her back—then you would have to reject her, then it would be awkward not just for the two of you, but all of us.” In a quieter voice, Chaeryeong finally says, “I was trying to find out if Lia's feelings are reciprocated—because if they are, well, that's... a problem."

Why would it be a problem? Ryujin is about to demand, and realizes in a flash just how stupid that question would've been. It's as easier as the ABCs: two girls, big K-pop group with a lot of cameras. Potential for scandals. Her gaze is weak on Chaeryeong, and Ryujin finds this time, the look Chaeryeong gives her is decipherable: she's scared. Concerned, worried.

Because it's not just Ryujin and Lia (if, hypothetically, Ryujin decides exactly that these confusing feelings mean she likes Lia). The whole group's _fucked_ if this ever gets out.

The unspoken truth hangs heavy in the air between them.

With a disheartening groan, Ryujin falls back next to Chaeryeong. "God, my head fucking hurts," she says. "I need about a million years to process all this."

Chaeryeong pats her back in sympathy. "It doesn't have to be a big deal—"

"How? The cat's out of the bag now, right? I can't go back to normal again," Ryujin bites her lip. "It's just—I need to figure this out. I don't even know what I am."

Distantly, she thinks about the one article that comes up on her Google news alerts completely by accident: _K-Pop Idols Who Definitely are At Least Bisexual..._

She remembers how icky she makes her feel, the thought of strangers compiling a set of out of context moments and trying to pass it as evidence that these people are not straight, as if sexuality's some kind of fun murder mystery people love making theories over. She feels a lot like that now—what does it mean, that her Chaeryeong ostensibly knows about her apparent non-heterosexuality before she even does? Has she always been obvious all this time?

She thought about the one interview she did, just days ago. _Ah, I actually got scouted at a JYP nation concert_ , she'd said _. But I only gave my number to the unnie because I thought she was pretty..._

“I’m sorry,” Ryujin finally says, leaning against Chaeryeong. The scent of strawberries fills her nose. She wonders if noticing how girls smell like, more than anything, is another indication that she should’ve known. “For exploding like that. Not that it’s any excuse, but I just—couldn’t stand the way that one emcee is cornering Lia, you know? I don’t want her to get hurt.”

With one last heavy sigh, Chaeryeong wraps one arm around Ryujin’s shoulders, pulling her closer. Ryujin is grateful that Chaeryeong still wants to touch her like this. Not a lot of girls probably would want to, if they thought their best friend is into girls.

“I know,” Chaeryeong says. “I forgive you.”

*

Ryujin takes a deep breath.

Chaeryeong’s gone back to her room after Ryujin finishes pouring her heart out, kindly leaving Ryujin to figure out things for herself. She reminds Ryujin that whatever it is that Ryujin decides for herself, it’ll be fine by her, and that other members would accept her no matter what, but to _please, give the others a bit of a moment to forgive you. They’re still pretty pissed, you see._

As soon as the door closes, Ryujin jumps back on her bed, opens up her laptop. She usually uses it to watch dramas—and maybe watches a heck lot of TWICE performances, which she used to always call _research_ —and dick around, but this time, she types in the search bar purposefully. She reads many articles, some even in English—and she feels kind of proud of herself for not needing Google Translate anymore—but mostly in Korean, about the different spectrums of sexuality and gender, romantic attraction and sexual exploration. She spends hours reading, that by the end of it, her eyes feel dry and red, but she thinks she knows now, finally. It’s still a tentative idea, but she feels comfortable saying it.

She takes another deep breath, steels herself.

One: x is an unknown variable.

Two: y is Ryujin kissing Lia back.

The correlation between x and y most definitely means that Ryujin is bisexual. A person who is attracted to her own gender… and others. She still doesn’t get what gender expression is, but she knows enough to discern that there’s no really a gender that’s opposite of her. So: attraction to her own gender and others.

Which makes x: Ryujin likes Lia, too.

 _Okay,_ Ryujin thinks to herself, _that felt right._

It’s close to dinner time when Ryujin hears the sound of a car pulling up, the low hum of the engine and the whirr of the brakes as it parks right up in their carport. Her heart jumps to her chest. _Lia._ Out of the window of her room, she sees Lia stepping out of the car, shuffling into the house.

She slams her down open, runs down the stairs two at a time at a dangerous speed, and skids to a halt in front of the front door. Faintly, she registers the sound of other footsteps too, ones as noisy as hers—other group members, coming to greet Lia, the heart and the glue of the group, the most beautiful of them all.

“ _Lia-yah—”_ Yeji is yelling out, but the rest of her words are swallowed up by a huge, all-consuming feeling inside Ryujin’s chest.

Ryujin’s eyes meet Lia’s.

And then, it’s time to face the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey you, thanks for reading this far! just as a disclaimer, i dont claim lia irl to have an actual eating disorder; everything in here is pure fiction. i think that the stereotype that korean idol = starving themselves is not exactly productive, considering western industries also put women under these insane standards that are not achievable for regular people like you and me. this fic is more about how the outside comments can affect one person greatly, and can just slide off another person easily. lia is the type to ruminate; ryujin doesn't. and that, ultimately, is where the story begins.
> 
> i hope you will stay with me long enough to let me tell the story to finish, because if you can't already tell, this fic is all about wanting to be you, in the end. and ryujin is still trying to figure out who is that person that she wants to be. 
> 
> anyway, sorry for the long rant. please let me know what you think!


	4. lia talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lia talks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: discussion on eating disorders (no one is actually diagnosed yet, but lia here is kind of in denial and since it's what people have labeled her with, she gets kind of defensive), vomiting (lia mentions she made herself throw up after she eats, but it's not mentioned in any graphic details)
> 
> this one's a little short, bcs i just wanted to give a look into lia's point of view, but i hope you still enjoy! thanks for the support so far! also, this is cross-posted on [asianfanfics](https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1443509) if you want to read it over there!

She should run. She should stay.

It isn't always that Lia's always battling these two contradictions at any given moment, but the point where she begins to is a little blurred. The feeling, though—that she can recall clearly, the rope tight around her ribs, squeezing all the air out of her lungs. A feeling like she's being hunted, watched all the time. Stuck between two extremes: to face everything head on, damn the consequences, or put on a brave face, pretend everything is normal until her nightmares stop being made of it.

Sometimes, it's easier when she doesn't have to make the choice.

"I don't have an eating disorder," she tells dr. Yoo. After so many times yelling it at herself in her head, the words start to lose meaning. It's so hard to not feel like she's failing at convincing even herself.

Dr. Yoo is a patient woman. The wear of the years and the weight of her experience sit kindly on her skin, wrinkled as it is. The way she sits is elegant, a simple pearl necklace peeking out of a smooth blue blazer, hands clasped on the table that divides them, her smile kind, almost enabling. "Slow down, Lia," she says. "I haven't even asked you how you are."

A lump lodged itself in her throat. She hates this question. It makes her feel like she's supposed to say she's doing fine—like when she had a fever but the show was starting in two minutes, and she had her responsibilities. Nobody wants to be a bummer and admit they're not doing fine.

"I'm..."

She tries to name a single feeling, grapple in the dark to settle on just one, but her fingers catch and drag and scratch along the surface of her heart, and she goes numb.

"... fine."

"Even with all the news about you?" dr. Yoo asks.

"Ah, it's not as bad as it seems, Doctor," Lia says, and she hopes it sounds sheepish, abashed, like she's answering all the fun questions. She's spent too long schooling her face into a neutral expression to let it fail. "Really, the reports make it all seem very severe. You know how the tabloids go."

"Even more serious than how Ryujin made it out to be?"

"Yes."

Dr. Yoo rearranges her hands on the desk, reaching for a gold-lined pen in her breast pocket, the same gliding ink used to sign the giant stack of NDAs their manager left before the session started. She opens a Moleskine notebook, writes just discreetly enough that Lia gives up trying to peer at it. "Lia," she says, and her tone's taken that gentle edge, coaxing. "I thought I told you the first time not to lie."

Lia doesn't let her smile slip.

She isn't giving anything away.

The first time she faced dr. Yoo, she spilled her guts. Told her about the deep, bone-settling insecurity that threatened to eat her alive, the suffocating weight on her chest that never left, no matter how many praises her group was receiving, the undeniable, humiliating part of herself that couldn't love men the way her parents wanted her too. Told her about the first time she met Ryujin, fifteen years old and fresh-faced, a determination and easy self-confidence that felt so out of reach, a blinding presence that made her chest feel tight. Icarus flying straight into the sun, foolish and in awe. She had been stupid, let the doctor know too much—and now, she's going to reach into her mess of thoughts and try to sort it out, and on a good day Lia doesn't even want to look inside her head, there's no way she's letting dr. Yoo anywhere closer.

She must not give anything away.

When she does, she slacks. Everything she lacks at shines on, pushing her far and far away from the sheer talent of her groupmates, an ugly spotlight on everything that makes her unworthy. No one must think her that; guard herself, chin up. Do not let anyone in.

Especially not the way she'd let Ryujin into her life.

_Look at the damage you've caused_ , it all screams at her. _Look at what happened when you let your guard down._

"Lia?"

"I'm telling the truth, doctor."

Dr. Yoo adjusts her glasses. "Why do you think your manager felt it's necessary for you to meet with me again?"

"It's..." _Overreaction_. "Precaution."

"What is it you think your manager is cautious about?"

"The group image, of course."

"Why do you think it's so important?"

"We're idols, doctor. We sell a fantasy. We're not supposed to have flaws." A beat. "I'm sure she's worried all the... controversy surrounding this will get to me. Last year hasn't been kind to many idols, as you probably. These things can really shake up someone’s psyche. It's sweet, really, but I can assure you, I'm dealing just _fine_ with all this. My groupmates are very supportive."

Dr. Yoo considers this, then leans in. "Can you tell me how your groupmates are helping you deal with the controversy?"

"Chaeryeong is the easiest to talk to. She's been through a similar situation at the beginning, so she understands me best," Lia says. "And Yeji is such a good leader, she reads so many articles and books on how to help someone going through a panic. Yuna helps with self-care days, leaves food for me when I forgot to eat. Never leaves me alone."

She hesitates, and it’s her first mistake.

And dr. Yoo jumps in. "And Ryujin?"

Lia's trained herself to react only a certain way when Ryujin is involved, these days. She cringes when she remembers the Paris vlogs, how she'd clung to Ryujin's chest and yelled from the second floor that she wants a beach house, Ryujin telling her, even before she knew Lia better, how glad she was to have known Lia, although Lia would never, in a million years, know why the hell she would be. It was distracting to be with Ryujin in Paris; it made Lia forget what she's supposed to hide, this big, stupid, dangerous feeling that made her chest hurt and float, the people and the building around her so different from what she's used to of Seoul's skyscrapers that Lia felt, for a long stupid while, safe from the rest of the world.

Lia is to be normal when Ryujin is brought up. It's humiliating enough that the group members know—she only ever told Yeji, because she trusts her as their leader, and Yeji deserved to know in case it—in case it ruined _anything_ , but Chaeryeong and Yuna found out on their own, through whispers and looks, patting her shoulders and assuring her they still love her, all the things that made Lia wonder so loudly _why why why_. If she could find a way to kill these feelings, she would, but they’re so big, all encompassing, that trying to shove it into a room doesn’t fit. She’s bleeding all over with it, and she can only hope everybody’s blind to it.

And in the mess of everything, Lia's too exhausted not to react. She flinches.

"She's—"

God, she tried to _help_ , is the thing.

She caught Lia and didn't tattle, didn't scrutinize her lack of form or discipline and instead goaded her into spending midnights sitting around the kitchen eating whatever air-fried snacks caught her fancy. It's insane to Lia. Ryujin's always been so effortless, moves through life unfazed, unaffected by words written on screens whether they are praises or insults—she just goes on. Ryujin doesn't give a fuck.

She gives a fuck about Lia. _Gave_ a fuck about Lia.

It's not to diminish the efforts the other girls are doing to help her, because she knows that the first time this happened, Chaeryeong probably saved her life by telling their manager about it. But like all things when it gets too hard, the girls swept it under the rug. Doesn't talk about it, and Lia's grateful, because she doesn't want to, most of the time, but Ryujin, with her unrelenting smile and concerned looks that she probably thought were subtle but not at all—it makes Lia want to spill her guts.

It made Lia _kiss_ her.

"Is it true that you have been spending more time with her than anyone else?" dr. Yoo asks.

"No." A pause. "I can't count down the minutes—"

Oh, _lies_. Lia's well-aware of all boring minutiae when it comes to Ryujin: she can tell you right now that it has been seventeen hours and thirty-two minutes since she kissed her. She can figure out the seconds too, probably, if anyone asks.

"—but it depends on what you classified as spending more time, really."

"What is it that you do?"

"We just eat."

"Why eat?"

"Oh, I have no idea, doctor. She probably just got hungry and I happened to be there."

True for the first night. No clue about any other night after that.

"Has it become a routine?"

"Not as of lately."

"What happened?"

"Ah, she probably just stopped being hungry."

And Lia's always fucking hungry, like a human pig, always gobbling up—

God, she wants to throw up.

"And you?"

She _has_ to throw up.

"I was _hungry_!" she snaps, her resolve breaking. "Fine. I was fucking hungry. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Once she admits it, it's irreversible. The doctor asks more questions, and Lia tries to backtrack, but it's too late now, with her guts spilled on the floor and bleeding all over, too much and mortifying and horrible, the last thing she ever wanted. The doctor pokes and prods, and like a dam, Lia breaks.

"What were you doing in the bathroom, Lia? Yuna told me... some things."

_I don't have an eating disorder_ , Lia keeps telling herself. It's all necessary actions—if she restricts her diet, loses a little more weight, maybe she'll start feeling like she's doing enough. Putting in as much effort as the other girls. Fitting in, finally, no longer the silver-spoon girl with a plain face and a voice that's too low to sing any songs they put out with stability, body that doesn't move quite right.

She'll be—she'll be enough.

But even to her, it sounds like a lie.

And she's getting tired of lying, and so she says it, too small at first, the doctor straining her ear too hear it, and once again, louder, and she can't take it back. "I was throwing up," she says. "I... I threw up everything I ate. I made _myself_ throw up."

The doctor leans back.

Lia's been broken before, but right now, she begins to unravel.


	5. i might tell you to do well

Yeji looks like she's going to run and leap into Lia's arms, and she's this close to achieving it, one of her legs already bent at an angle, preparing for the jump—and she probably would have, had Lia not held up her hand and said, almost too soft to be heard, "Don't."

Ryujin would laugh at how absolutely ridiculous Yeji looks, mid-jump and frozen like something out of a comic panel, if her own heart doesn't stop at the tone Lia's voice's taken.

A weight of silence settles, and Lia, looking distressed, blabbers on. "No—I mean—I 'm not—" she cuts herself off, clearly frustrated, slapping her hands down her face. "Just—"

Ryujin loathes how devastatingly breakable Lia looks right now, and she wants to move, wants to wrap Lia around her arms and kisses the hard lines on her face away, until Lia is warm and happy again. But their eyes meet, and Lia's gaze is cold and pained, and Ryujin knows in that moment that Lia won't want her too.

Her hands, still on her sides, have never felt so damn heavy.

In the end, it's sweet, beautiful Yuna who's able to break through the awkwardness. Cautiously, she approaches Lia, two arms extended low, as if she's approaching a tiny, kicked out puppy. Lia doesn't make any move, doesn't pull away when Yuna finally circles her arms around her shoulders, loosely at first, then tighter. Hesitant, Lia grabs on to Yuna's arms, her face going from being in total agony to devastation to close to tears, and that does it.

Yeji and Chaeryeong pounce on Lia with what could only be described as a hug attack, nearly toppling the frail girl in the middle backwards, screams of, " _Lia-yah_!" coming out of their mouths. A weak laughter bubbles out of Lia, the kind of laugh she does when she isn't sure to cry or to whoop in joy, and Ryujin watches, unsure and in something akin to jealousy, Lia burying her face into the crook of Yeji's neck, Chaeryeong's hair tickling her nose.

It kills her how much she wants to touch Lia.

"Ryujinie," Yeji half-whines, half-scolds. "Get in here."

Ryujin's eyes snap up to Lia's. "Oh—"

"Ryujin," firmer this time, stony. Ryujin realizes at this point Yeji's broken the silent treatment agreement, and doesn't know what to do—risk suspicion by refusing to, coming off even more as an asshole, or join in their dog-pile on Lia and have Lia absolutely fucking loathe her.

Ryujin hates how predictable it is that she takes the second option.

Carefully, she tracks the circumference, finding a spot where she can embrace Lia without touching her more than Lia wants to—which is probably not at all. She slots herself next to Chaeryeong, thinking the brown-haired girl is most probably the safest choice, being the only one in the group who knows about their kiss and the subsequent sexuality crisis, and sort of flops into the ten-armed hug, hoping her feelings for Lia transfer somehow.

And they would've stayed like that forever, had Lia not complained about how hot she is in a voice that's finally not sad or close to tears, and they laugh and laugh and drag her into the living room, settling into bean bags and relocating their five-person cuddle more comfortably, Ryujin sequestering herself at the farthest point from Lia, but yearning.

*

"I love you, Lia-yah," Yuna mumbles.

At some point, someone's turned on the television, and they're watching re-runs of some old episodes of Running Man on mute. Lia's still in the clothes she went out in this morning, jeans and a bulky sweater that looks really soft to touch, which makes for a pretty funny picture when you consider the rest of the girls are in shorts and various oversized clothing. Lia doesn't seem to have energy to change clothes, though, and honestly, after the day she has, none of them really wants to leave Lia out of sight.

Years of training and months of living together mean that at this point, they more or less can read one another pretty easily. And they all have come to the silent conclusion that Lia's not going to talk about any of it soon, but that's okay—Ryujin's learning that it's her own story to tell, and whether she wants to or not is her choice. But she really hopes Lia would, wants to absorb some of that burden from her shoulders, feel it for herself, if she can, so she understands Lia better. Bear it for Lia.

It's an insane coincidence that Yeji ends up being the one who says it. Sometimes, their group's near telepathic connection is way too scary.

"Please talk to us, Lia," she says. "Maybe not now. But please... not... not ever?"

"I don't know," Lia says, quiet. She's looking straight at the television, though Ryujin can't tell if she's really watching.

"You're not being a burden," Chaeryeong chides, as if reading her mind. Ryujin wants that ability. "We're a team. We're in this together, alright?"

"Are you going to sing High School Musical?" Lia interjects, clearly grasping at humor to alleviate the serious tension.

Chaeryeong grins and nudges her softly in the ribs. "Don't tempt me," she says. "But I mean it, Lia. We—the rest of us—may never well know how it feels like to feel the things you do, but it doesn't mean we will judge you, okay? So when you start to not feel good, you can talk to us. Any of us."

"In—"

All eyes snap to Ryujin. She feels her face flush, but she pushes on. "Including me," she finishes, daring herself to look at Lia, who's positively stunned. It makes Ryujin mad—does Lia not think Ryujin would want to listen to Lia? Ryujin had told her exactly the night they kissed that she wanted Lia to do just that, and Lia had told her she'd tell Ryujin everything, to see Lia getting all surprised as if Ryujin had once shut her down... the feeling that dawns on Ryujin isn't pleasant.

It occurs to Ryujin that maybe, just maybe, Lia didn't really mean the kiss.

After all, Chaeryeong could talk all day about how obvious it is that Lia liked her, but Chaeryeong's not Lia. Who's to say that things haven't changed? Maybe Lia no longer likes Ryujin, maybe she talked through it with whoever it was she was meeting back there at the building and they made her realize how bad Ryujin is for her. Ryujin doesn't know if she can handle it, if Lia changes her world this much and doesn't want her any more, and she has to look away, her fist in front of her mouth so the whimper that she lets out is nearly inaudible.

It's almost funny, how Ryujin never even thought twice about Lia in this way, and how now, with the kiss and a thousand burning questions laid down between them, Ryujin can't handle the thought of having her feelings not reciprocated.

Something passes in Lia's eyes, and it could be relief, but Ryujin's not sure if it isn't just her own feelings projecting. "Okay," Lia finally allows, small and quiet. "Thank you."

"Ah, don't thank us! You would do the same for any of us!" Chaeryeong says, burying her face into Lia's shoulders. "Remember in the beginning, when I was really sad because people were so mean about me? You held my hand and told me I was beautiful and stayed by my side the whole night. You should let us do the same too, sometimes."

"But it's different—"

"No less important," Yuna cuts in, insisting. She nudges Yeji, who nods fervently.

"We're a team," she reinstates once more. "Your burden is ours to bear, too. Same as your joy."

All the snuggling, kind words, and encouragement have got to be too much finally for Lia, who Ryujin is sure still feels overwhelmed from her earlier meeting, and unwittingly, she bursts out crying.

She can't tell if it's a good cry—but happy tears won't look like this, Ryujin supposes. There are creases in her forehead that wouldn't be there if she were happy, her lips too wobbly, but no one tells her to quit crying. Yuna takes one of Lia's hands and Yeji takes the other, and they let Lia ride it out, Chaeryeong rubbing a hand down her back, soothing until her breaths stop coming so quick. There's no judgment that passes. They all have a quiet understanding that this is part of Lia's process, just letting it all out after spending so many months keeping it all inside her thin ribcage, fighting not to let it show.

With all her might, Ryujin places a gentle hand on her thigh. Lia's head snaps to lock her in a tearful gaze, and Ryujin doesn't tear her eyes away. She gives it a subtle squeeze, hopes it's enough to be grounding.

It's release, Ryujin thinks. And they let Lia have it.

*

For the next few days, Yeji is adamant on not acting weird, but her insistence on not making things weird just puts everyone on edge and in turn, makes things weird, and dinnertime passes in awkward silence until Lia says with barely concealed annoyance, "Drop the act, everyone. I'm not made of glass." And proceeds to send Yeji into near tears, apologetic and desperate to make things work.

Lia persists that she doesn't need special treatment, and Ryujin wants to protest, wants to tell her that it's also not okay to treat it like it's nothing wrong. But Ryujin doesn't say it to Lia; she still doesn't know where they stand, emotionally, if Lia's allowing Ryujin's input in her precarious relationship, especially since Ryujin found that unintentionally, with their midnight snacks, she might have played a role in exacerbating Lia's symptoms.

She did a lot of research on eating disorders, after figuring out her bisexuality. (It's kind of funny how she worried about it so profoundly, and now it's just simply background noise to the worry that has become the soundtrack ever since the kiss.) She learned that there are many kinds of eating disorders, that just because Lia falls under the archetype of skinny, young woman in her early 20s, eating disorders could affect people of all ages.

There are signs, like an unearthly obsession with counting calories, eating only tiny portions, bingeing and purging. Ryujin doesn't know what to make of those earlier signs—it seems that when she thinks about it, she'd also experienced those. In the beginning, she was very conscious of her food, and tiny portions were necessary to keep her around the margin of the body weight written in her contact, but the bingeing and purging are new terms that she's just discovered.

Bingeing, as far as she knows, is when the person suffering from said disorder eats copious amounts of food in one sitting, usually after starving for the whole day, to satisfy their hunger. It's kind of pulling her as taut as a string, trying to classify if their past midnight meetings count as that. She doesn't think the amount of food they consumed is copious—maybe the equivalent amount of a large fries at McDonald's, and when they were not eating fries, they usually just sat in the kitchen floor and passed around a bowl of cereal between them, talking idly about nothing in particular.

Then there's purging.

Yuna's words only lead Ryujin to think of the worst, and it makes her nauseous to imagine Lia bowled over the toilet, forcing two fingers down her throat to empty her guts. She tries not to assume, learned her lesson in not assuming especially after where it got her, but it's hard not to think of the worst when Lia continues to refuse to speak of it.

And then, beneath all the concern and constant worrying, there's the issue of the kiss. There's the issue of whether or not Ryujin should be pondering about the kiss when the question of Lia's mental health is at hand—what's the most ethical thing to do? Lia's going through a difficult time already by herself, and now amplified by the attention of the media—wouldn't Ryujin just be _imposing_ then, bringing up the kiss? What if it just makes things worse?

It's just—god, Ryujin knows she shouldn't push. And she's not trying to, really. She wants to give Lia time. It's just that she hasn't been able to not think about it, as if Lia's unveiled the key to the Pandora's box right under her nose and told her not to touch it. A starving man with a plate of food, told to wait. Damn near impossible. She keeps reminding herself that seeing Lia okay, up and cracking jokes and eating normally again is enough, but every time their skin brushes each other, all walls crumble. Like a dam, the longing pushes and erodes until Ryujin's left with nothing but a pitiful Lia-shaped hole in her heart, and no way to fill it.

It makes her feel awful. And it isn't that Ryujin wants Lia to reciprocate—she wants to, but it’s not a top priority (to hell with Chaeryeong saying she would, Ryujin never wants to assume again)—or kiss her again so they become girlfriends (she doesn't even know how that would work), it's that Ryujin would feel content if Lia just lets her _in_ again. Tell her everything, like Lia said she would. Be a shoulder to cry on. But Lia has been nothing but painfully civil and formal, and so that's out of the question.

So Ryujin stews and yearns, treats Lia with the same wide-berth that Lia's giving her, and tries not to go too insane.

It's not working too well, obviously. Ryujin knows she's going to fail. The thing about her is that once she's discovered something, she gets preoccupied with it. When she was introduced to music the first time when she was five, she wouldn't stop crying until her parents played her songs again. At ten years old, when she saw idols for the first time on television, she spent the remaining years before she was scouted honing her body into the perfect dancer—stamina, the singing abilities. She doesn't just let things _go_ once she decides she cares. She doesn't find herself caring about too much, but she's latched on to Lia, and now it's become impossible to notice how absolutely goddamn gorgeous she is.

Their stylist always makes sure they all look their best, but sometimes, Ryujin thinks that Lia’s given extra privileges just for how beautiful Lia looks in every outfit she’s put in.

Today, for a show, Lia's wearing jeans—and they're not even fitted, skinny ones that hug the her hips in a way that makes Ryujin want to hide her face in her hands—they're a little loose, a high-rise but not quite high-waisted, with holes in the knees and thighs. She wears a sheer sleeveless top with a high neck that gives her an elegant air, her hair, shorter now, stylishly mussed and down. Lia looks good, she always does, but what makes Ryujin want to crawl up a wall is the pair of red gloves that she wears, the way the shade matches the tint of her lips, even her cheeks, the top of her button nose. The way she looks down at her phone, nonchalant, resting her chin on her fingers, covered by the velvety fabric of the gloves. She looks—expensive, like someone Ryujin should fucking _kneel_ for, and it's just way too confusing to dissect.

It's not like the other girls don't look gorgeous—Chaeryeong, especially, in clear holographic thigh-high boots, looks especially striking, Yeji's corset top and cut-out back (Ryujin plainly _refuses_ to analyze Yuna because she is a baby)—and there are certainly... sexier outfits that Lia has worn (the hot pants and crop-top duo that still haunts her goddamn dream), but this fucking _look_. Ryujin can't deal.

But at least it's only for a single five-minute show, right? Ryujin can survive.

 _Wrong_. They end up going to a radio interview and Lia keeps everything on, _especially_ the gloves. It begins to feel like a personal torture when Lia is assigned to sit right next to her, of all places. Ryujin has to pretend like she's not about to catapult right out of her seat while answering tame questions about the comeback and their favorite songs off the album.

(It's _Nobody Like You_. Duh.)

Ryujin swears that if the radio host hasn't forced their hand by asking the exact questions that their manager has explicitly told him not to, she'd still be useless over Lia. As it were, her attention's stolen when the radio host says, "So, Lia, have you been eating well?"

Ryujin freezes.

Lia's answering smile is hesitant, but thank god it's radio. "I have, thanks for asking."

"Ah, that's good to know," the host says. "So everything that Ryujin said is not true, then?"

"Actually," Yeji steps in, ever the curt one. "I think that question's not on the table."

"But why not?" The host asks. "In the days since the news broke, it's opened up a discussion on unhealthy standards in the music industry. Your fans even ended up trending an awareness hashtag for body positivity. It became the #1 trend worldwide for 4 hours."

Ryujin's surpise is reflected right in Lia's squeak. "It did?"

"Yeah," the host pushes. Ryujin exchanges looks with Chaeryeong— _they didn't know_. They _wouldn't_ ; all they knew about social media and trends were from print-outs that their manager curated. Yeji sneaks some quick Googling sometimes, but it’s likely that trends like that won’t show up on Google on the first few pages. "Don't you feel like you should seize this momentum and do something influential about it?"

Lia looks on helplessly, a deer caught in headlights. Ryujin wants to swerve the car and smash it right into whoever puts that look on her face. "I..." she says, then stops. Lost.

 _Not your place_ , Ryujin aggressively reminds herself. _Not your goddamn place._

"I want to make music," Lia settles, finally. "Since the first time I went to a concert, I've always wanted to be an idol. I often looked at the stage and imagined myself on it when was younger." She bites her lips, the words sounding rough and unpracticed out of her mouth, but sure. She glances at Yeji, seeking support, and at Yeji's nod she plows on. "I realized that the path on becoming an idol is hard, and actually being an idol would be harder—and I know that I'm supposed to stay strong, for my girls—" here, Yuna takes one of her hands, "for my fans, too, when things became hard. But sometimes... it's not so easy."

Out of the corner of her eyes, Ryujin sees Yuna lift Lia's hand, bring it to her face. Yeji reaches over and puts her hand on top of their joined ones. It makes Lia laugh, a light, little sound that finally feels full of mirth.

"I've been given the privilege to live such a good life, so I know that I have it easy—"

"It's not a competition, Unnie," Yuna whines.

"—but I get hit _hard_ , too," Lia admits, and she collapses against the back of the chair, as if admitting that takes a lot of her energy. "But I don't have the luxury of dealing with it on my own, and instead everything becomes a headline. What should be just a misunderstanding between friends can become a huge career-ending scandal." Ryujin fights to keep her face neutral. "So... if I may, I'd really, _really_ like to keep this to myself. Figure it out as I go along."

Lia clenches the other hand, the one that's free, under the table, and Ryujin thinks, _fuck it_. She reaches for it, grips it tight in her own hand. Lia blinks at her, startled, but Ryujin holds on.

Miraculously, Lia doesn't push her off or slap her hand away. She shifts, rearranging their fingers so their fingers slot against one another, and Ryujin finds it damp with sweat, but she doesn't care.

"Maybe," Lia says, "maybe, when I'm a little sure, I'll share it to you guys. But for now, I thank you for your support, and ask that you please give me the privacy I need to handle this personal matter."

Chaeryeong's hand is on theirs, too, now. There's no way she misses the way Ryujin tightens her grip, and the way Lia squeezes back. But Ryujin doesn't care.

Lia's taken hold of her own narrative, and that's more important than the decency of hiding her big dumb crush on her. Fuck, Ryujin is so fucking _proud_ of her, this level of openness and vulnerability that Lia doesn't owe to anyone, really, but chooses to show anyway.

"I love you, Lia-yah!" Yeji is saying again, and they all chorus in unison—but for Ryujin, the words are bigger, more meaningful than the rest of the girls mean it to be.

*

Their manager chews out the radio host for breaking interview protocol, but soon finds that she can’t be too mad. After finding out about the positive reactions that weren’t told to them, Yeji texts one of her friends to send her screenshots of first responses to the interview, and they’re kind of blown away that for every five tweets sent out, at least three are supportive of Lia. Even international fans. In Canada, where Lia used to live, her name becomes the trending topic for three hours.

It makes Ryujin’s heart soar. She’s not really one to care about what people say, has never been one who’s curious enough to seek out tweets and articles like Yeji, but the fact that the fans are on Lia’s side feels damn good. It’s about time, she thinks. Everyone should appreciate and love Lia, because she deserves it the most.

Finally, when they get home, the atmosphere feels light. Lia offers to help Yuna cook, and the youngest puts _WANNABE_ on speaker and starts dancing in the kitchen, and soon enough, it turns to a cooking/karaoke event, with Lia screaming along giddily into her gochujang-smeared spatula, eyes closed in concentration.

“I don’t wanna be somebody!” she sings, and the rest of them follows up with a heartfelt, “Just wanna be me, be me!”

Yuna hoots. “I wanna be me, me, me!”

Dinner is a one-pot situation, and Yeji, the strongest of them, carries the soup into the living room, where Chaeryeong has set up _The King: Eternal Monarch_ to watch while they eat. It feels almost like they’ve slipped again to normalcy, and Ryujin’s still humming under her breath as she volunteers to wash the dishes—which she never does, really. She hates washing the dishes. But Lia looks so comfortable and snug in her bean bag that Ryujin never wants to disturb that.

With the positive mood, Ryujin would’ve thought sleep would come easy, but of course, the second her head hits the pillow, she becomes restless. Her eyelids are closed, but her mind won’t shut up. She tosses and turns, annoys an exhausted Yeji enough that the leader throws her bear plushie at her and tells her to _go the hell to sleep, or shut up._ It’s the harshest Yeji has ever been to her, and Ryujin’s not surprised—Yeji’s a monster when she’s tired and sleepy.

So, avoiding the kraken, she quietly slips out of her bedroom. Maybe she’ll drink hot chocolate and mope around in the living room until she falls asleep in one of the bean bags.

It feels like a déjà vu then that she finds Lia in the living room, laying across the couch, staring up emptily at the ceiling.

For a second, Ryujin considers running back to her bedroom. This feels too dangerous, too soon—isn’t this how the whole mess began? But her traitorous feet creak when she reaches the bottom stair, and Lia sits up so quickly that Ryujin has no choice but to make herself known to the girl that kissed her and turned her world upside down.

Lia’s eyes are wide when they lock on Ryujin’s. Ryujin doesn’t think she can look away even if she’s held at a gunpoint.

As if they’re in a drama, they open their mouths at the same time.

“Ryu—”

“I’m sor—”

And Ryujin doesn’t blush, right? Because her image is teen crush—she’s suave, she’s cool. The girl everybody wishes were their best friend. Unbothered by stupid little teen stuff like love and crushes. But right then, she feels her cheeks warm, and she knows that if she holds up a mirror to her face, she’d be red up to her ears.

Like a cliché, Ryujin says, “You go first.”

Lia bites her lip. They’re at different ends of the room, but even this far, Ryujin feels the irresistibleness of that one act. Lia looks unsure, but at the same time, also like she has a frog in her mouth. When she speaks, it’s soft, like gliding rose petals down her back. “Come here.”

It’s the last thing Ryujin expects to hear from Lia, so it takes about a while for it to sink in. Once it does, though, Ryujin wastes no time—and she wouldn’t object to being called desperate at all, because she _has_ been. The thought of being allowed in such a close proximity to Lia is enough to send her into lovesick sighs.

(Shut up, she knows she’s whipped.)

Ryujin’s in front of Lia now, their shadows overlapping in the half-light of the living room, Lia sitting down and looking up at her, unreadable in the dark. Ryujin’s surprised when Lia’s arms shoot out to pull her into a tight embrace.

Ryujin gasps. “Lia—”

“Just,” Lia strains to say, mouth across Ryujin’s stomach, only separated by a layer of thin t-shirt. Ryujin wills herself not to think about the possibilities when the layer is removed. “Stay here.”

Ryujin stills. Confusion comes floating up her chest, making her throat tight. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. The whole day she pines and wonders in anguish if Lia’s ever going to let her this close again, and she hates that the second she gets what she wants, instead of feeling satisfied, she feels _conflicted._ Some part of her wants clarity, but the other part is screaming at her to let it be. _Don’t push. Let Lia go at her own pace._

Ryujin would listen to those words if she’s a kinder woman. As it is, she’s a selfish piece of shit.

She wraps her arms around Lia’s shoulders, pressing her head closer. She wants to kiss the crown of her head. “I guess we’re even, huh,” she murmurs.

“Even?”

“Yeah, with the whole ignoring one another when we’re supposed to be talking thing,” Ryujin says.

Laughter wheezes out of Lia’s mouth, but it sounds heavy. Ryujin feels her interlocking her fingers on Ryujin’s back, as if sealing Ryujin for her own. Ryujin doesn’t think she minds much. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, but she’s already forgiven when there’s nothing to forgive. Ryujin tells her as much, and she laughs again. “You’re too good to me, Shin Ryujin. How are you so kind to the girl who stole a kiss and dipped?”

Ryujin’s breath catches.

Her fingers dance on the top of Lia’s head, playing a gentle lullaby that only they both know the words to. “I’d like to return the kiss, if you don’t mind,” she says, and cringes at how fucking corny that is.

Lia looks up, and there’s this look of pure wonder that Ryujin feels not deserving of, but she loves it when Lia looks at her like that. She rests her thumb on her bottom lip, and she swears, swears to everything that is holy, that Lia’s eyes darken. It makes her feel hot all over.

“No refunds,” Lia jokes, but even Ryujin can tell her breath’s come up short.

Ryujin lowers herself to her knees so they’re about eye-level, though with Lia sitting on a couch, she’s got a bit of a higher ground. That’s okay—it’s perfect this way. Ryujin gets to look up at Lia and observe the texture of her skin.

“May I?” Ryujin asks.

“I’m a lot of work,” Lia tells her, quiet like a secret. “You alone won’t make me better.”

“I’d be foolish to think I could fix you,” Ryujin says. “I don’t want a relationship where I walk in thinking you’re broken. That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?” Lia asks, reverent.

“I want _you_.”

“But I’m—”

“You’re the kind of person that belts out _Into the Unknown_ unprompted in the middle of a V-Live, then runs yourself ragged worried that you can’t sing as well as the rest of us,” Ryujin interrupts. “You made Chaeryeong cry by telling her that she’s beautiful, but wouldn’t listen to us when we tell you that you also are.”

Lia presses their foreheads together, tender. They share a breath. “I can’t sleep,” she admits. “I kept thinking about what I said at the radio interview. Kept thinking maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I felt like I put a bigger target on my back.”

“Lia, what are you talking about?” Ryujin pulls away to have a clear look on the expression on Lia’s face. “People support you.”

“Not everyone.”

“Fuck the people who don’t,” Ryujin says, suddenly angry. “I’ll protect you from them. I don’t give a shit. I know the other girls don’t.”

“God, please don’t. I’m not worth the trouble.”

“Fuck _that_ ,” Ryujin snaps. “This isn’t a _you_ thing, baby. Standing up for yourself is brave and incredible, especially when you’re locked into the corner that way. I guarantee you, if it was me—or Yuna, Yeji, or Chaeryeong—you would support us no matter what. So let us do the same, okay?” Her lip wobbles, but for once, Ryujin’s trying to be the strong one. “Please?”

Lia exhales shakily. Her hands reach up to cover both of Ryujin’s, cupping her cheeks. Ryujin snuggles closer. “Baby?” she mutters, and Ryujin feels her face warm again. She moves to pull away, embarrassed, but Lia holds her in place. She tells Ryujin, “I like that.”

Despite herself, Ryujin grins. “You like it when I call you baby?”

Lia ducks her head. “Okay, if it’s going to be a _thing_ —”

“Baby,” Ryujin whispers. Lia closes her mouth.

“Ryujin,” she replies, her name rolling off her tongue like a prayer, and Ryujin can’t help herself. She kisses Lia, and it’s fumbly, sloppy, but at least it lasts longer than their first stolen kiss. Their mouths move in tandem, little pants spilling out of Lia’s mouth whenever they part, and Ryujin lives for that hitch of breath whenever their lips touch, so she does again and again.

And _again_.

“It’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows,” Lia says urgently, as if the very touch of her fingers on Ryujin’s waist alone isn’t enough to make her feel that way. Ryujin kisses the frown away, wonders how the hell she ever lived without kissing Lia before.

“I know,” Ryujin promises, and doesn’t let Lia doubt again for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! thank you for being patient with me. last week was rough for me, hence the later than usual update, but i hope my own angst and troubles didn't translate to this albeit sweet chapter. thank you so much for all your kind words! i will answer you guys as soon as i find the strength to talk to people again. just know that i appreciate all of you. <3
> 
> if you want talk to me about this fic or itzy, my twitter is [here](https://twitter.com/tinysriasih)!


	6. turn this beat up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am... sorry in advance for the choice of this chapter's title

First things first, they have to figure out how to be together.

Ryujin has a few concerns. Well, several, really. The first one off the top of her head is the fact that she has never dated a girl before, and thus, does not know how to. Who pays for the dates? Who is supposed to open the door, and hold it for the other to walk through?

("We can split the bill," Lia says patiently. "I can open the doors for you, if you want."

"Okay, but what if I want to pay for your food?"

"If you let me pay on our next date."

"Deal.")

Lia assures her that the mechanics of dating a girl is no different than dating a boy, but also not to worry about the typical customs of dating. She says, "We can just be together however way we want. It's our relationship, after all," with a smile that melts the entirety of Ryujin's heart to the floor. Ryujin admits that when they agreed to actually date for real, she'd expected herself to be the smooth one, the one who gets Lia blushing and flustered, the cool, calm and collected one—after all, it's her damn persona—but Lia's pretty much been doing nothing but shatter that expectation so far. Which is not great and also great at the same time. Ryujin wants to be the smooth one, dammit.

(She'll figure out a way to be that way. She just has to stop blushing every time Lia refers to something as belonging to them. Both. _Ours_.)

But beyond the customs of dating, there's the more pressing issue of _how_ to date. They are, after all, still two girls, members of an internationally recognized group from one of the biggest K-Pop agencies in South Korea. As such, it's imperative that it stays a secret.

("At least for now," Lia says with a tight smile, and Ryujin nods sagely.

Another fact that Ryujin finds while Googling her sexuality crisis: there's almost no way she can be out and proud while staying in the industry. The only out idol that she knows is named Holland, a gay soloist, but the searches for his name in Korean SNS turn up nothing but immense hatred, and that tells Ryujin everything about her own chances.

(But that's okay. She tells herself it's okay. Isn't love a private thing?)

Telling their manager is a big no. The thought of even facing JYP to talk about this is nauseating. There are consequences that feel too massive to comprehend; best case scenario, they're told to break up, citing concerns for dynamics of the band, inner circle conflicts risking the band, but worst case scenario? They could be kicked out. JYP doesn't have to specify exactly why, and for the rest of their lives, they'd be hounded with questions from netizens, wondering and speculating and gossiping and lying. And their relationship is so new; telling the higher ups only mean trouble for now, and so they cross off that list.

Which leaves: the other girls.

It's not like Charyeong doesn't already know. The morning after their first kiss, the brown-haired girl took one look at Ryujin and congratulated her. Ryujin didn't even say anything. It feels counterproductive to try to hide it from Yeji and Yuna afterwards—Ryujin knows Chaeryeong will slip, and besides, didn't the rest of the group know about her embarrassing crush even before she herself did? They live together, too—it'd be hard to try to find some alone time in the house they share if they also have to keep it secret from everyone.

("Alone time?" Lia raises her eyebrows, wiggling them, and Ryujin slaps a pillow over her head in retaliation for making her blush, again.)

But more than that, Ryujin thinks it's about trust. The girls are the only ones who Ryujin has let see her at her worst—when she had a breakdown, or felt too overwhelmed about everything around her, before she met the girls, she used to just lock herself in her bedroom and force herself to feel better by watching mindless dramas and variety shows. Her mother wouldn't even know that Ryujin had been crying once she emerged from her bedroom.

(While we're still on that topic: Ryujin would rather eat a shoe than tell her mother, so no telling her. Maybe ever.)

But the girls held her hand, buoyed her back up with their gentle words and support, and when Ryujin was at her best, they continued to hype her up. It's a sign of trust, for Ryujin, to let people in during vulnerable moments, and she feels fooling around behind their backs would be a betrayal of some sort. The girls _deserve_ to know. Yeji would certainly not appreciate being kept out of the loop.

So, they tell the girls, and it goes a little like this:

Yuna is cooking dinner that day. Ryujin remembers it's kimchi-jjigae because she's so nervous about telling the other girls that her hands shake as she's holding the spoon, and the broth spills onto her favorite sweatpants. Lia, noticing this, immediately grabs a tissue and wipes it down, and the gesture of this casual domesticity—and Lia's hand on her thigh—makes Ryujin blush really hard and choke on her next spoonful of soup, and Yeji, ever the observant, starts to look concerned.

"Are you okay, Ryujin?" she asks.

Ryujin exchanges looks with Lia. Lia, through all this, has been the calmer one between the two of them. It's kind of unfair, because, again, Ryujin's _supposed_ to be the smooth one.

"Everyone," Lia starts, putting her spoon down on the table. "Ryujin and I have something to tell you guys."

And though the girls look like they can guess what it's about already, Lia continues on, "We're dating."

Ryujin glances at the girls, tries to gauge their reactions one by one. Visibly, she gets nothing, as they all wear the same plain, neutral expressions. Even Chaeryeong, who actually _knows_. Ryujin's hands start to get clammy—they can't possibly disapprove, right? Yeji, especially, is uncharacteristically silent.

"Are you guys sure?" Yeji is the first one who speaks

Ryujin blinks. "What kind of question is that? Of course we're sure about each other."

"You know what this means, right?" Yeji says again. "I mean, dating as idols, that's already a big issue for a rookie group like us. Dating _within_ the group? That's another scandal waiting to happen."

Ryujin can't believe what she's hearing. She had been expecting maybe a little resistance, especially from Yeji, who always wants to keep them out of trouble's way, but to hear it laid out like that is another thing entirely. She loses her appetite.

"Lia-ya, we talked about this, right?" Yeji looks at Lia, her voice taking on a gentler note. Lia glances back at Yeji, then at Ryujin, and sighs, sinking back to her chair.

"I know," Lia says. "This is why we want to tell you all upfront. We promise you we will be discreet, no hand-holdings, kissing, or anything like that outside the house, we will even sit as far away as we can during interviews—"

"I think that'll just make the fans notice it even more," Chaeryeong pipes up. Yuna nods in agreement. "You guys have always been weirdly close."

"We can always figure out the mechanics later," Lia says. "We're just—asking for—permission? Of sorts. We know dating within the band is risky, not to mention we're two girls. I barely got away unscathed from the last scandal, and I stepped into one right after. But you guys—out of everyone, and even Ryujin herself—know how long I've liked Ryujin. And I'd really, _really_ like Ryujin to be my girlfriend."

Lia blushes, finally. Ryujin can at least feel a little better about how embarrassing she is about her crush. Lia bows a little, and Ryujin follows suit. "So please, let us have this," Lia says.

Yeji looks at them, heartfelt, and exchanges looks with Chaeryeong and Lia. Finally, she reaches out, and Lia and Ryujin both straighten up.

(Ha, no pun intended.)

(God, does being bi come with a side of wanting to make not-straight jokes at every opportunity?)

" _Of course_ we know how much you like each other," Yeji says. "Which is why we're even more scared for you."

_Oh._

"If anyone ever finds out, you guys..." Yeji shakes her head. "We don't want you guys to be torn down by hate. Especially for something as harmless as being in love."

"Love is love!" Yuna quips in English.

"Exactly," Yeji nods sagely. "You don't need permission, not from us. We will never stand in the way of your guys' happiness. And this is a promise, not some kind of meaningless adlib. Seriously—Lia, you know I want nothing but joy for you, after everything you've been through."

Lia's eyes are teary. "Yeah," she agrees. "We promise to be careful."

"You better be," Yeji nods. "Thank you for telling us."

And just like that, a weight that Ryujin didn't know have been holding her down lifts, and she breathes easier, after. This is what coming out is like, then. Just a huge weight off her chest. She thinks about the future conversations that she'll have, ones just like this, with her brother, mother, childhood best friends, ones that won't have a similar outcome. What she will do if instead of the tentative acceptance like what she gets from the girls—her best friends—she receives instead rejection.

Suddenly, her eyes are teary, too.

"Ryujin?" Yuna calls softly.

Ryujin looks up, faces of concern and support in front of her, Lia's hand snaking up the table to tangle with hers. She exhales slowly, but it catches on a sob on the way out, and her "thank you" comes out garbled and distorted, and Yuna is saying, "aww, Ryujin," in a way that means a hug attack is coming.

Chaeryeong gets to her first, then Yuna, then Yeji, and Lia, the closest to her, and on that dinner table, Ryujin cries in relief, happy and sad and so many things at once, but loved fiercely.

*

The obvious out of the way, they're now navigating around what it _means_ to be together. Ryujin's still grey on a lot of the answers, but she's learning faster about what it _doesn't_ mean to be in a relationship with Lia.

It doesn't mean that things change, not so drastically. The other girls don’t treat them any different; it makes Ryujin wonder if it means that them gravitating towards one another is something so normal, that the sight of them kissing—discreetly, only in the safety and privacy of their shared house—barely warrants them to bat an eye. It doesn’t mean that it gets any easier, though, being with Lia.

Ryujin still feels her heart beat faster every time she sees Lia all dolled-up before a performance—she has a type of favorite outfits, she realizes, and it's whenever Lia is in a top that's tight-fitting and a pair of pants, and after seeing Lia wear leather pants for the first time, a strip of skin just barely visible along her stomach under a crop-top, Ryujin considers very seriously to petition for their stylist's raise. Lia hasn't seemed to notice this particular preference of Ryujin, and she keeps looking all innocent, sitting with her legs propped up, as if looking at the curves of her lean legs isn't driving Ryujin crazy.

So—yeah, not so different. Except this time, Ryujin has a name for everything that she's feeling, and it's making it harder to ignore this. This time, Ryujin knows she's allowed to jump Lia's bones, and that's... _not_ a good thought to have, not when they're at backstage with so many hidden crevices she can make out with Lia in. Thankfully, Ryujin hasn't lost all of her sanity yet, and still manages to practice restraint, even when Lia unthinkingly bends down to fetch a paper cup she's knocked from the table.

Unfair.

Another unfair thing: neither Yuna nor Yeji would let either of them switch rooms. Yeji gives her a withering look the moment Ryujin brings up the idea, whispered next to the vending machine in the same floor as their practice room.

“Don’t think that just because you’re both girls and can’t get pregnant, I’m going easy on you two,” Yeji says.

“Oh my God,” Ryujin says. “I just want to sleep with her!”

“Ew, Ryujin!”

“I mean _literal_ sleeping together! Get your head out of the gutter!”

“Why did you say it like that, then? It’s not my fault my head went to the gutter!” Yeji slaps her across the bicep. “Whatever. You two are _not_ sleeping in the same room.”

Ryujin deflates. “Ever?”

“You’re not even legally allowed to drink, and you want to sleep in the same bed as your girlfriend?” Yeji glares. Ryujin sputters, because, _well_ , and something about it must’ve softened Yeji, because the leader sighs, crosses her arms on her chest. “Why are you moving so fast, Ryujin?”

“Who’s moving so fast?” Ryujin says.

“Relationships are not a race, you know,” Yeji says, with all the wisdom of someone whose relationship count is no different than Ryujin’s. Ryujin’s about to retort with that, but she reconsiders: ever since they got together, Ryujin has been thinking about everything in terms of progress. What to do, how to tell the people that matter, what their next steps are, counting the things that are different, the things that they’re supposed to do. She flushes—okay, so, there _is_ a chance that she kind of is treating this like a race. But it’s also her first relationship with someone she really, really likes.

Relationships with the boys from high school didn’t matter this much because Ryujin was never really invested, anyway, treated them like a fun thing to fill her pastime with, but with Lia, Ryujin wants to try. And it’s possible her urgency to do everything right may have caused her to rush, just a little.

(Also, she was the first one to suggest _alone time_ to Lia. She can’t chicken out after that fact.)

Yeji eyes her knowingly.

“Fine, okay,” Ryujin says. She feels gradually uncool the more she tries to be cool. “I might be rushing a little.”

“Take your time,” Yeji advises, touching her hand. “There are other things that you can do if you want to step up your romantic game.”

“Like what?”

Yeji shrugs, wistful. She hums as she slips in a coin, punches in the code for a yuzu drink. “A picnic? Lia loves the outdoors, you know.”

Which is how, in the meager free hours they have in between performing and promoting, Ryujin finds herself sitting on a red checkered blanket on their apartment’s rooftop, a selection of Lia’s favorite crackers, fried chicken, homemade gimbap (thanks, Yuna!), and other nibbling food spread out before her artfully. It’s meant to be a surprise, but Lia catches Yuna making way too many gimbaps in the kitchen some time ago and figures out what Ryujin’s planning immediately. Still, when Lia finally comes up to the rooftop, she pretends to be shocked, and it’s the thought that counts, all things considered.

“You look beautiful,” Ryujin tells Lia. The other girl, matching the picnic theme, is in a flowery blue sundress with puffed up sleeves, looking entirely like she’s supposed to be on a fashion magazine spread. The wind blows and messes up her hair, and Ryujin laughs, slides her emergency hair tie off her wrist and offers to tie up her hair.

Lia kneels in front of her, and gingerly, Ryujin begins gathering her hair in her palm. Her hair’s soft—the agency makes sure to take care of it thoroughly, and though Ryujin’s been subjected to many salon appointments for her own upkeep, the many times it’s gone through bleaching and dyeing process make her hair a little too coarse to the touch. It’s thinner now without the extension, but her tie wraps twice over around Lia’s soft locks, and Ryujin’s kind of breathless as the ponytail falls perfectly without Lia trying. She forgets what they’re supposed to do for a hot minute.

Lia tilts her head, meeting Ryujin’s eyes with question visible in her brown irises. “Ryujin?”

Ryujin blinks, pulled back down to earth, and scrambles to look like she hasn’t spent the last minute thinking about Lia’s hair spread out between her fingers, on her pillow. She goes for the pitcher of lemonade (thanks, Chaeryeong!) and pours two whole glasses for the both of them. The vestiges of winter melt away to give way for spring, and thus makes lemonade too cold to drink in the windy hours, but Ryujin’s thinking it’s kind of the point. When she sees Lia shiver, she pulls off her own jacket to drape it over Lia’s shoulder.

Lia smirks up at her. This is it: the same Lia who grins wickedly at her and jokes about the kiss cam. She’s back. “You wanted it to be on the roof on purpose, huh?”

“What purpose?” Ryujin asks innocently, and pops a salted cracker into her mouth. Lia pinches her cheeks.

“You’re not as smooth as you think,” Lia declares. “But I’m going to let you pretend that you are.”

Lia goes for Yuna’s homemade gimbap. Ryujin tries not to show how happy she is that Lia’s eating. She keeps a regular schedule when it comes to her visits to the corporate-approved therapist, and though Lia still hasn’t talked about it, it seems to be going well. She still plays with her food, sometimes, but she always eats it in the end, though nowhere as ravenous as the rest of the girls are after a hard practice, but that’s progress, and it’s slow and kind of painstaking, but Ryujin’s willing to be there for every step of it, even when Lia falters.

They take turns feeding each other, and Ryujin has a mini heart attack the moment Lia’s tongue, whether by accident or completely on purpose, grazes for a split second along her fingers. But it’s fine. Ryujin’s holding up just fine. Her heart is probably suffering, but she’ll live. When another strong gust of wind blows and Ryujin fails to conceal her shiver, Lia laughs, and they end up sharing Ryujin’s jacket between the two of them, their shoulders knocking sweetly against one another as they devour the last of the fried chicken.

In the middle of arguing about the best chicken flavor (it’s obviously lemon pepper, it goes _so well_ with their favorite brand of gochujang aioli), Lia vouching passionately for mango habanero—“Hot and sour is the ideal flavor profile, do _not_ even try to disprove this, Ryujin”—Ryujin realizes that she really, really wants to kiss Lia.

Because she can, she does.

It’s quick, the most chaste of their kisses so far, but it catches Lia off-guard. Lia’s surprised face is just irresistible, and so Ryujin cradles her soft jaw in her hand, brushing her thumb along her the apple of her cheek, and kisses her again, deep enough that Lia tilts her back, nearly on the floor with Ryujin on top of her when they’re done.

Lia’s flushed up to her ears. Her nose is red even without blush.

“You can’t win every argument that way,” Lia admonishes, but her hands are clutched at Ryujin’s back. Ryujin deems her point obsolete.

“I win when I get you, though,” Ryujin says, the kind of cheesy thing that she knows will get Lia to slap her on the arm, but instead Lia gets all quiet, like she’s really letting the words sink in.

“You really think that?” Lia asks in a whisper, like she doesn’t want to break some kind of illusion between them.

Yeah, it’s cheesy, but Ryujin’s not in the habit of lying. She tells Lia, “I do. I know I’ve been an idiot all along, but now I’ve come to my senses I can’t stop thinking about it.” She drops her head on Lia’s neck, says to the soft skin on the delicate curve that gives way to her collarbones, “I really am lucky.”

Lia’s hands tighten on the fabric at Ryujin’s back. She breathes out a shaky sigh, as if she’s waiting for bad news and receiving the complete opposite, and is too scared to believe in it. “Me too,” she mutters quietly, so this close, only Ryujin can hear. “I’m so lucky I have you.”

*

Yeji may not have had her first kiss, but she knows smug when she sees it.

It’s all over Ryujin. If they’re not in the car on the way to their last televised show for WANNABE, she would’ve boinked her over the head.

It’s so ridiculous that it makes her want to roll her eyes. Unfortunately for her, she’s too fond of her bandmate to feel anything other than relief. She shares a look with Chaeryeong over her shoulder, and the younger girl sighs in solidarity.

She takes it that the picnic is a success, then.

It’s good seeing them both happy like this. She can’t remember the last time she saw Lia smiling this much—for Lia, everything’s been at a steady decline in terms of mental health since they debuted, and Yeji knows that Lia beats herself up about it more than anyone else in the group, thinking she isn’t strong enough to have let the mean comments got to her. It’s always been Yeji’s job as the leader to ground Lia, but this genuine joy, this subtle spring in her steps—Yeji’s missed seeing it, and as wary as she is about their relationship, she only wishes them the best.

And it’s why, the second her phone starts pinging with incessant notifications, she feels her stomach drop down so fast. It’s getting so loud and frequent that Yuna rips out her earbud, curious.

“Someone must’ve missed you so much to send so many texts in under one minute,” Yuna teases.

Yeji punches in her pass code, swipes her phone unlocked. Her parents are at work, her friends are at school. Who could be blowing up her phone?

She scrolls down her notification tab. It’s going away so fast as more and more pour in, going too rapidly for her to catch the entirety of the sentence, but one word is always consistent: ITZY. Right—she doesn’t have social media, but she sets Google alerts for their band, just to be kept inside the loop.

**_DISPATCH: NEWSMEDIA GROUP –_ ** _ITZY’S LIA AND RYUJIN – TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT?_

**_Koreaboo_ ** _– New Photos Reveal Real Nature of ITZY’s Lia and Ryujin’s Relationship._

**_ALL K-POP_ ** _– 7 HOT PHOTOS TO PROVE THAT #RYUJISU IS REAL! BONUS: EXCLUSIVE SCOOP FROM SECRET INSIDER!!!_

Oh.

_Oh._

“Yeji?” Yuna leans in, concerned now. Her shock must’ve showed on her face. “What’s wrong?”

Even if Yeji has the words to communicate just how grave their situation is, she wouldn’t have the chance to say them. Their phones all lit up in that same moment with a group call invitation from—

“JYP?” Ryujin asks from the front seat. “Why is he calling us?”

Yeji’s head spins. Oh, God. This is why she almost wants to say no when Ryujin and Lia came forward the other day. This is why.

They’re two minutes away from their venue. If it’s reached Dispatch, there’s no running from it any more. The entrance could be packed to the brim with paparazzi, journalists (or the sad excuse that the gossip blog writers call themselves), and fans. Perhaps angry ones.

Yeji makes a split-second decision, and hopes to all heavens that this is the right move.

“Don’t answer,” she says, too loud to come off as calm. “Turn off your phones.”

“Yeji?” It’s Lia now, peering from the far end of the middle seat. “What’s wrong?”

“Just _do it!_ ” Yeji snaps forcefully. Lia’s eyebrows crease, and she can _feel_ tension building up insanely inside the car, but her mind races too fast for her to care. To the driver, she barks, “Turn the car around.”

“Excuse me?” the driver says. “No. We’re almost there already.”

“Turn. The. Car. Around.”

“Yeji?” Chaeryeong calls her. “Hey, can you please calm down—”

Yeji can’t take this. “ _Turn the car around_!”

She slips off her seat belt, because desperate times call for desperate measures, and lunges forward, grips the steering wheel in both hands. The car swerves dangerously, and she hears panicked shouts and maybe someone hitting the window hard. A faint voice in her head tells her that she should check on her girls—being a leader doesn’t just mean keeping them in line, it also means keeping them safe from any sort of harm—

But she’s failed in doing that. The fact is out there, the pictures laid bare for all to see, and no matter which way they spin this story, the people will know.

“Okay, okay— _I’m turning the car around_!”

With great momentum, at the nearest U-turn, their car jolts around, sending Yeji careening back into her seat. She thinks she may have knocked her upper arm on something, but she can’t really bring herself to care.

“Yeji,” Yuna whispers, and her lips are wobbly, scared, and oh, Yeji has failed so, so spectacularly. “You’re scaring me.”

Yeji stares up at her girls, Chaeryeong pushing herself forward so she can hold Yeji by the arm, as if trying to stop her from doing something rash again, at Yuna and Lia, wide eyes full of fear, and Ryujin, her smug smile nowhere to be found, straining to catch her eyes from where she’s seated. Yeji wants to preserve this moment, keep it solidified in ice so she’ll never have to break them the news.

 _God_ , she thinks. _Not when Lia’s the happiest._

But there’s nowhere to run. With her data and GPS switched off, she wordlessly hands over the articles on her phone, and helplessly watches the world crumble all around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your support so far! i wasn't feeling super well these past few weeks due to... the everything in the world rn, thus the long update, but u have my word that i won't abandon this baby. i will finish this even if it takes a long time, and i hope y'all are willing to bear with me. ;)
> 
> that being said though... i'm sorry for the cliffhanger? 
> 
> (u can yell at me on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/tinysriasih)!)


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